Vashti, TX
N 33° 33.353 W 098° 02.156
14S E 589492 N 3713330
While the town of Vashti was named for the niece of its founder, Dave Taylor, Vashti was the first wife of Persian King Ahasuerus in the Book of Esther, noted for her refusal to appear at a banquet to show off her beauty.
Waymark Code: WMTZRG
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 01/29/2017
Views: 1
Esther 1:1-8 notes that King Ahasuerus had thrown a few banquets for the nobles in his kingdom, as well as for those in his palace, in order to display his wealth and power. In the meantime, his wife, Queen Vashti, was busy with a banquet of her own, for the women in the royal house. Esther 1:10-12 elaborates:
On the seventh day, when the heart of the king was merry with wine, he commanded Mehuman, Biztha, Harbona, Bigtha, and Abagtha, Zethar, and Carcas, the seven chamberlains that served in the presence of Ahasuerus the king, to bring Vashti the queen before the king with the crown royal, to shew the people and the princes her beauty: for she was fair to look on. But the queen Vashti refused to come at the king's commandment by his chamberlains: therefore was the king very wroth, and his anger burned in him.
--
For her refusal, Vashti was banished and replaced by Esther, as a warning to wives that they obey their husbands, or else.
Today a rural community, they pronounce the name as "VASH-tie," and the Handbook of Texas Online provides some background:
Vashti is at the intersection of Farm Roads 174 and 1288, eighteen miles southeast of Henrietta in southeastern Clay County. It was established between 1880 and 1891 by Dave Taylor, who established a post office in 1891 named after his favorite niece Vashti Strahan. By 1904 the community school registered sixty-nine students and employed two teachers. During the 1920s the population of Vashti reached 264, and the community had a number of businesses, including a cotton gin, three general merchandise stores, a drugstore, and a blacksmith shop; in addition, six churches and two fraternal orders operated locally. In the 1930s and 1940s Vashti remained relatively stable, but during the 1950s it entered a period of decline as farming became less profitable and improved roads encouraged greater mobility. The post office closed sometime after 1930. By the mid-1950s the population of Vashti stood at 140, a number that the community continued to report into the late 1980s. Vashti had five rated businesses in 1956–57 but none by the late 1980s. Cattle raising, dairy farming, potterymaking, and fruit production are the area's major industries. In the 1980s the Vashti community center was the hub of area social life. By 2000 the population fell to eighty, and local officials estimated a population of seventy in 2009.