White Castle Maps

by Marty Gauthier

This map of property owners in White Castle is from about 1906.  Although White Castle had residents from around 1882 or so, this is the earliest map that I know of.  Michele Gauthier Clement and I spent some hours in the courthouse looking through all the big binders with maps.  Credit to Charlton Bajon for making me aware of White Castle early maps.  He knows much more than I could ever relate about White Castle.

The map is presented in two pages, because that is the way it is in the courthouse.

Right half - about 3.5 megabytes

Left half - about 4 megabytes

Many will not recognize this town because it is so different from our experience.  At the time, White Castle was composed of the area from Bowie St. to the cane fields towards Cora Texas.  Bowie St. was named McGalliard Ave then.  McGalliard was one of the owners of the original lumber mill.

When ownership changed and the mill was enlarged it became know as White Castle Lumber & Shingle Co.  Bowie was the mill overseer and lived in the big home that was located exactly where the Catholic Church is now located.  Many know the house as the rectory after the new church was built in the middle 1950s.  The house was relocated to make room for the church to face Bowie St.

In 1906 White Castle Cooperage Company was formed to begin making barrels.

1st and 2nd Streets evidently didn't exist very long before the levee was moved towards town.  3rd Street is what we now know as the road nearest the levee.

White Castle was long and narrow then.  It didn't extend any farther west than McGalliard (Bowie) St. but it did extend south towards what is now Samstown.  So the bottom part of the map can be moved mentally adjacent to the upper left side of the map.  This is the part going to Samstown.

There was not a highway or road through the middle of town.  River road and the Samstown roads where all there was for many years.

A railroad ran from the Samstown area to the White Castle Lumber & Shingle Co. to bring logs to the mill.  Another railroad extended from the mill to the river for shipment of the many manufactured products to numerous states.  Notice the dotted line down Wailes St.  That is the location of the railroad.  The map is marked with RESERVATION above the dotted line.  Wailes St. later became known as Reservation St.  It looks like a divided street, but originally there was a railroad in the middle.  Now one side of what used to be the railroad is Dr. Dean St. and the other side is Chiarmonte St.

 The orignal Wailes St name was for the White Castle plantation owner of that time.