Editing Calvert, Texas (section)

==History==

===Founding & coming of the railroads===
The earliest known white settler in the area was Joseph Harlan, whose 1837 land grant laid five miles south of what is now the City of Calvert.<ref name=":0" /> In 1850, Robert Calvert, for whom the town was named, established a plantation west of the town. Calvert, who was a former Texas Representative and area farmer urged the [[Houston and Texas Central Railway]] to build through the area. The Houston and Texas Central Railroad agreed to stop in the town, at the encouragement of town leaders, in 1868.<ref name=":0" />

In January 1868, a group of investors purchased land at the townsite and platted the community; by February of that year, merchants from the nearby communities including Sterling and Owensville were uprooting and moving to the community. A post office also opened in Calvert in 1868. The first trains arrived in Calvert in 1869, and the town was incorporated the next year with an aldermanic form of municipal government.<ref name=":0" /> Although the Stroud family owned most of the land, the town was named for Robert Calvert because he was a driving force behind getting the railroad to stop in the town.<ref name=":2">{{Cite web|url=http://www.milamcountyhistoricalcommission.org/newspaper_081.php|title=The Town of Calvert - Frontier Times - October, 1931.|last=Rogers|first=Marjorie|date=October 1931|website=www.milamcountyhistoricalcommission.org|publisher=J. Marvin Hunter|access-date=2016-10-23}}</ref> The order of election for the incorporation of Calvert was issued July 5, 1869, but a majority actually voted against incorporation. This election was set aside because it was believed that "a fair expression of the qualified voters was not had," and a new election was held Saturday, July 24, 1869, a majority voted for incorporation, and the town was ordered incorporated on August 13, 1869.<ref name=":2" />

After the railroad made Calvert the major trading center of the area, it was reported that:  <blockquote>It was a common sight to see six or eight wagons drawn by oxen slowly passing through the one and only street of these towns en route to Houston to dispose of their cotton.  These wagons averaged ten miles a day.  The team-masters usually owned their teams and were paid so much per hundred pounds for hauling freight.<ref name=":2" /></blockquote>

===Named as county seat===
In 1870, as [[Reconstruction era|Reconstruction]] sparked political maneuvering in [[Robertson County, Texas|Robertson County]], the former county seat of [[Owensville, Texas|Owensville]] was replaced by Calvert. The town had been briefly occupied by federal troops early in 1870. Just nine years later, however, the voters of Robertson County voted to move the county seat to nearby Morgan, now named [[Franklin, Texas|Franklin]].<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hjf06|title=FRANKLIN, TX|last=L.|first=HAILEY, JAMES|date=2010-06-12|website=tshaonline.org|access-date=2016-10-23}}</ref>

===Development and decline===
By 1871, the town claimed to have the largest cotton gin in the world.<ref name=":2" /> However, sources differ on when, exactly, the gin was built. The ''Handbook of Texas'' cites the 1871 date, while a 1931 ''Frontier Times'' piece on Calvert places the building of the gin by John H. Gibson as 1876.<ref name=":1" /><ref name=":2" /> Eventually, P.C. and J.H. Gibson, Jr., took over the gin. It had 21 stands and a connected oil mill. The gin served a significant portion of the Brazos River bottoms. A total of 32,000 bales were reported received in 1882.<ref name=":2" />

In 1873 a severe yellow fever epidemic killed many in the community, severely depopulating the town. An early judge, in speaking about the epidemic, noted: <blockquote>The disease was brought to town by a traveling printer from Louisiana where the fever was raging.  He took a room over the restaurant in the Bailey building and died there.  As many persons as could made an exodus before the town was quarantined.  We lost between three and four hundred persons.  The fever was a terrible epidemic, and our people suffered because we did not know how to treat the disease.  The trains were not allowed to stop in Calvert then and the windows of the coaches were closed until they were far out of town.<ref name=":2" /></blockquote>A county jail was built in 1875. By 1878, Calvert had 52 businesses. Today, the city of Calvert still exists as a Texas municipality. As of 2016, the town's mayor is Marcus D. Greaves.<ref name=":3">{{Cite web|url=https://www.txdirectory.com/online/city/detail.php?id=272|title=Cities: Calvert - Texas State Directory Online|website=www.txdirectory.com|access-date=2016-10-23}}</ref>

===Modern controversies===
In December 2010, all three members of the town's police department resigned over a conflict with the city council.<ref>{{cite news|last1=Falls|first1=Clay|last2=Morten|first2=Nicole|title=Calvert Police Department Says, "I Quit!"|url=http://www.kbtx.com/home/headlines/Calvert_Police_Department_Says_I_Quit_111737704.html|access-date=6 June 2015|publisher=KBTX|date=14 December 2010}}</ref>

In June 2015, a TV station reported that cities of Calvert, [[Franklin, Texas|Franklin]], [[Hearne, Texas|Hearne]] and [[Lott, Texas|Lott]], in a "Texas Triangle", were using their police departments to issue numerous speeding tickets to turn their municipal court into a "cash cow".<ref>[https://web.archive.org/web/20150606061034/http://www.wfaa.com/story/news/local/investigates/2015/06/02/former-judge-says-he-quit-because-of-speeding-ticket-quota/28367771/ Judge says he quit over speeding ticket quota; WFAA 8 TV; June 3, 2015.]</ref>