Oakville Once Got Mail by Stagecoach Four Times a Week

Before it was Oakville, the site was known as 'On the Sulphur,' for a nearby tributary of the Nueces River. Irish immigrants had settled the area under the McMullen and McGloin Mexican land grant. When Live Oak County organized in 1856, Oakville became the county seat. Thomas Wilson gave 640 acres and required separate squares for public use, a graveyard, a church, and a school.

The post office opened May 11, 1857, with Joshua Hinton as postmaster. Mail came four times a week by stagecoach from San Antonio through Corpus Christi and on to Brownsville. By 1879, stages left San Antonio and Corpus Christi six days a week. Stores, two hotels, a livery stable, a school, and two churches followed.

The railroad bypassed Oakville in 1913, and the county seat moved to George West in 1919. In 1966, Oakville's post office became a rural branch of the Three Rivers office. Stagecoaches brought the mail; the railroad pulled traffic elsewhere, and county government followed.