Editing Bardwell, Texas (section)

==History==
[[File:The First National Bank Building.JPG|thumb|left|The First National Bank, established 1915, is one of two historic buildings left on East Main Street.]]

The community was settled in the early 1880s when the town's namesake, John W. Bardwell, built a [[cotton gin]] one mile south of the present-day location. A school opened in 1892 and a post office was established in 1893.<ref name="Texas Handbook">{{cite web | url = https://tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/hlb07 | title = Bardwell, Texas | publisher = [[The Handbook of Texas]] online | date =  | accessdate = 2009-09-02}}</ref> When the [[Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway]] was routed through Ellis County in 1907, the gin and community were moved to the nearest stretch of track. The town had its own telephone system and electricity supplied by lines from [[Ennis, Texas|Ennis]] in 1914. Bardwell prospered throughout the 1920s as a cotton shipping point with three gins and six grocery stores.<ref name="Texas Escapes"/> The population grew to 650 by 1929, but the [[Great Depression in the United States|Great Depression]] and a subsequent drought severely impacted the community. The main road was rerouted to the new State Highway 34 in the early 1940s and most of Bardwell's businesses either closed or moved to sites along the highway. In 1958, Bardwell's school consolidated with nearby Ennis. After dropping to a low of 277 during the 1970s, the population began to grow. By 1990, 387 people lived in Bardwell. That figure had grown to 583 by 2000.<ref name="Texas Handbook"/>