Manvel / Iowa Colony (1:30)

In 1857 the Booth family was the first to arrive in the Manvel area. The Gulf Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad arrived in 1877 and the Luther Land Company from Kansas started selling parcels of land in what was then called Pomona. Schooling started in 1893 and after a series of weather extremes, many of the 250 families left. The second wave of immigration started with Italian families displaced by the 1906 closing of the coal mines in Thurber Texas. The families were looking for land to farm with a climate similar to Italy. By 1914 there were about 21 Italian families in the area. Oil was struck in 1931 and rice farming became a major crop in 1938.

Iowa Colony also had 2 waves of immigration. Iowa Colony was founded in 1908 by the Immigration Land Company from Iowa. Excursion trains brought prospective buyers from Iowa several times a month. Brazos River flooding and 2 years of freezing temperatures  between 1913 and 1924 caused most of the southern portion of the area to be abandoned. In 1929 the land was then promoted to Czech farmers and the second wave of immigration started. Cotton and sorghum were the major crops.