Menlow, Texas – population 10

Menlow shares Zip Code 76621 with Abbott. Both are in Hill County. Hillsboro is the county seat. In 2010, Hill County population was 35,089. Abbot’s population that year was 356.

Here is a link to a satellite image of Menlow:

https://www.google.com/maps/@31.8671584,-97.1553926,2167m/data=!3m1!1e3

Lots of land. In some places there are snake-like windings of terrain plowing. That came in during the 1930s and was a way farmers could keep top soil from blowing away in Texas winds or being washed away during heavy rain.

http://www.texasescapes.com/CentralTexasTownsNorth/Menlow-Texas.htm

says: “Founded in the 1890s by settlers from the ‘deep.’” southern states and Europe, the name comes from a park in the Carolinas. The town was granted a post office in 1895, although it closed just 8 years later.

“The town consisted of fifty hale and hearty souls by the mid 1890s, among these Menlowites, there was a doctor and a blacksmith.

“The town peaked in the early 1900s with a population of 100. Cotton was the dominant crop for the region and since Menlow had a gin; it swelled in importance as a shipping center.

“Early settler Joe Steele, donated land for a school and a (Methodist) church. A school (the Treadwell School) was organized in 1920, but it was forced to merge with Abbott schools about 1940. During the Great Depression (and aftermath) the population had declined to a mere 25. The siren call of defense plants in Fort Worth and other towns sapped the strength of Menlow, and there were only 10 people left by the early 1970s.

“Ten remains the given population of Menlow for the 2000 census.”

Abbott, the metropolis east of Menlow, is mostly known as the place where Willie Nelson was born. The 356 count in 2010 is 56 more than in 2000. A pretty good increase. The town’s largest population was 375, in 1970.

The demographic breakdown is phrased a little differently between the 2000 census and the 2010 count. Of the 2000 census, Wikipedia says 96 percent of the population was “White,” 1 percent “African American,” 3 percent from “other races,” and 5.67 percent “Hispanic or Latino of any race.”

The 2010 compilation is termed 91 percent “non-Hispanic white,” with other percentages of the population designated as “black or African American” (2 percent), “two or more races” (0.3 percent), “Asian” (0.3 percent), “Native American” (1.1 percent), and “Hispanic or Latino” (6.5 percent).

So, by federal enumeration, white people are no longer simply “white,” but “non-Hispanic white.”