With transportation, far-off markets became accessible, and farmers began to grow small grain crops such as wheat and oats as a commercial crop. Some of the farmers expanded into the sheep and hog raising business.
By the turn of the century, cotton had also become a major crop in the Argyle area, and most of it was ginned locally in the cotton gin built in by J. Smith on the east side of the railroad on the lot behind the present Gulf Service Station operated by Ben Brown. John Thompson Argyle resident and former Precinct 3 County Commissioner, began working in the cotton gin in at the age of sixteen. According to Thompson, he worked at the gin from to , and he recalls that one season over 3, bales of cotton were ginned.
A good cotton picker or hand could pick three to four hundred pounds of cotton a day. The combination of boll weevils, soil exhaustion, and low prices caused cotton farming to decline in Argyle. The gin burned in and was not rebuilt.
Many farmers in Argyle then turned to peanuts, and sold some peaches, pears and plums to their neighbors in Justin. Will Gibbons, remembers taking fruit to Dallas and getting ten cents each for watermelons.
The Argyle State Bank had its beginning on September 29, , when a group of citizens filed with the Secretary of State of Texas for a bank charter. A red brick building housed the bank in the front part and the back part was a drugstore. The bank had a rather unusual history attached to its brief existence in the Argyle community. According to Mrs. Miller Faught, a long-time Argyle resident, the sleepy populace was awakened by explosions at AM on February 14, Anderson later went to the United States to join the Union Army, and after the war, served successively as governor of both Ohio and Kentucky.
His ranch stood unoccupied during much of the Civil War, although at one point, Confederate troops used it as a temporary arsenal. After the war, the McLane family began using more than a thousand acres of unfenced land around the property to raise fine horses. Their Circle Dot-branded mounts became famous among cavalrymen. Dividing his time between ranching and writing poetry, novels and plays, Hiram McLane and his family lived on the Argyle property for nearly thirty years.
At times McLane tried to sell the ranch. For instance, his father, Col. Salter as the engineer to lay out a residential area for speculative purposes. Some also credit Patterson for the name of the Argyle, saying that the bluffs surrounding the mansion reminded him of Argyesville in Scotland. Other sources, such as The Argyle Cook Book and Stagecoach Inns of Texas, say it was named by two Scotsmen who had bought the building, added a third floor and made it a hotel, which lasted only about two years.
The John G. The cotton gin burned in and was never rebuilt, and area farmers started growing peanuts instead of cotton. After the population peaked in the s, the community began to decline. It reached a low of ninety in Local soils were depleted.
As opportunities to work in Dallas-Fort Worth industries and war factories increased during World War II , young farmers moved from the country to the city. By the s the population rose slightly, to Argyle voted to incorporate on September 19, , and did so in Wilson was elected the first mayor.
The next year the Argyle Volunteer Fire Department was founded. Argyle's newspaper, the Quad Town News , was published that decade. In the s more businesses were located in Argyle, including two grocery stores, several service stations and garages, beauty shops, a leather and shoe-repair shop, and a cafe and bakery. The railroad depot was moved in the s, when the old section house was being used for Sunday school classes, but the railroad was still shipping agricultural products and manufactured goods.
In the next two decades Argyle grew considerably as big-city residents moved to a country atmosphere. In it had a population of 1,, which grew to 2, in That year Argyle's one manufacturing establishment made wooden cabinets.
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