By: L. Scott Ayers
When is Nederland 5000 miles and seven time zones from Holland? Why when it’s Nederland, TEXAS of course! Nederland certainly sounds like it should have a Dutch heritage, but just how Dutch is Nederland?
The story of late 19th century America can not be told without the railroad, and the story of Nederland, TX can not be told without one railroad in particular, the Kansas City Southern (KCS). Under the guidance of its visionary founder Arthur Edward Stillwell, the KCS railroad began in 1889 as a local beltline in Kansas City. But Stilwell foresaw a link to the sea, and realizing that the eastern seaboard was 1400 miles distant, while the Gulf of Mexico lay only 800 miles away, he soon had the KCS laying rails southward.
The advance of the KCS ground to a halt when the Panic of 1893 dried up railroad financing in the US. With the fate of his growing railroad in the balance, Stilwell made a desperate trip to Amsterdam to solicit Dutch banking and brokerage houses for funding. The Dutch had a long history of investing in American railways, and several US roads were even listed on the Amsterdam stock exchange at the time. The Dutch again proved financially forthcoming, buying millions of dollars of KCS securities. In recognition of this assistance (and undoubtedly to promote further Dutch investment), Stillwell gave many of the towns along the KCS railroad Dutch names, and hired several Dutchmen as managers of the company. When a planned rail terminus at the major port of Galveston, TX did not work out (rather fortunate given the Great Storm of 1900 that nearly wiped that city off the map) the KCS drove rails to the sea in the direction of what is now Port Arthur, TX (named for Stilwell himself), reaching the Gulf of Mexico in 1897.
As was the practice of the day for American railroads, the KCS actively promoted settlement and commerce along its newly-completed rail line which traversed many relatively unpopulated areas. Just outside Port Arthur, a town was platted out on vacant land along the railroad for the creation of a rice and dairy farming community which Stillwell named ‘Nederland’ in honor of the nation that had, just a few years before, proved the financial savior of the Kansas City Southern (still known in some quarters as “The Dutch-American Railroad”).
Stillwell had grandiose plans for the new town, hoping to establish a model Dutch agricultural settlement in Nederland by actively promoting the immigration of Dutch boeren (farmers) from the homeland and the relocation of Hollanders from existing Dutch farm communities in Iowa and Michigan. These early settlers were housed in the KCS-built “Orange Hotel” in Nederland until establishing their farmsteads. The hotel, named for the Dutch royal family, was the focal point of the Dutch community for several years, also serving as both a school and a church until such institutions could be permanently built in the nascent town. By 1903, several hundred Dutchmen and their families had heard the siren call of Stillwell and his railroad and moved to the newly-formed enclave. Dutch was the language of the day and Nederland boasted a Dutch Reformed church and a Dutch-language newspaper!
The Dutch heyday was short-lived however as the nearby Spindletop oil discovery of 1901 eventually drew waves of new Cajun immigrants from nearby south Louisiana to work the oilfields. This shift in the economic base of the area, combined with the vagaries of the climate and the difficulties of rice farming soon caused most of the early Dutch settlers to drift away from Nederland and by 1912 only about 30 Dutch families remained.
So how Dutch is Nederland, TX today? I recently made the ninety mile drive from my home in Houston to find out.
Nederland (pronounced need-er-lend by the locals) is a busy town of 17,000 located in the so-called “Golden Triangle” of Southeast Texas, a name derived from the vast wealth generated by the Spindletop petroleum boom at the turn of the last century. Today, Nederland’s night skyline glows golden from many refinery flares as the town is set in the heart of one of the largest petro-chemical processing areas in the US (Rotterdam is the largest in Europe). Little remains of the area’s agricultural heritage.
On the day I arrived, the Gulf skies opened up with a cool, drenching rain more reminiscent of the old country than a Gulf coastal community. This was a welcome respite from the sometimes oppressive weather in this part of the US, and I could only imagine the hardships encountered by the early Dutch immigrants. Heat, humidity, malaria, anthrax, yellow fever, hurricanes and the dreaded mosquito bedeviled the hardy settlers. Indeed the story is told of young Dutch ladies of yore wearing newspapers under their stockings at Orange Hotel dances to fend off the swarms of pesky ‘muskieten’.
Fortunately modern science and medicine has made life much easier, and as no hurricanes were imminent, I set out to uncover what wisps of Holland might remain in Nederland. While most Dutch culture here dissipated a century ago, I was pleased to find the town still remembers its original Dutch roots and background...
The repository of most things Dutch in Nederland is the Dutch Windmill Museum. The museum is housed in a beautiful 40-foot tall replica of a Dutch windmill built to honor Nederland’s namesake country. Located in a downtown park, the Windmill Museum’s dedication ceremony in 1969 featured a speech by the Vice Consul of the Netherlands. The two story museum displays artifacts of the history of the town, including several from the Dutch settlement era at the dawn of the 20th century. My favorite was an exhibit of Sinterklaas paraphernalia from early Dutch immigrant schoolchildren. A small selection of imported Dutch products is available for sale in the Museum gift shop. There is also a display on the town’s favorite son, country singing legend Tex Ritter.
Of particular note, the museum host on the day of my visit was Gregory Allport, a jovial native Hollander (with a British father) from the village of Delfzijl in far northeast Groningen province. Now a resident and unabashed booster of Nederland, TX he provides a tangible and welcome connection back to the Netherlands and is most helpful in interpreting the museum’s many historical exhibits.
Annually in March, the town hosts the Nederland Heritage Festival. But the passage of the years and the subsequent influx of Cajun and then Hispanic immigrants has largely minimized the Dutch influence on the festivities.
The Kansas City Southern still rumbles through Nederland (keeping Gregory awake at night), but passenger service and the train station are long gone, as is the Orange Hotel, the first US home for so many Dutch immigrants. A few anglicized street names still recall the Dutch era, but the straats and wegs (streets and ways) signage of 1900 is just a memory.
Of the relatively few Dutch families who remained in Nederland, several generations have prospered through the years and have proven to be proud and generous benefactors to Nederland, as the names of several town parks bear witness.
While the economy of Nederland now ebbs and flows with the price of crude rather than the labors of Dutch rice farmers, the town has neither forgotten nor forsaken its humble Dutch origins. After all, the town motto is still: “A little bit of Netherlands in Southeast Texas”
