Collins Ghost Town Cattle Payroll — Jim Wells County

Collins was established in 1878 as the first sizable American settlement in the area and became a stop on the Corpus Christi, San Diego and Rio Grande Narrow Gauge Railroad. When the San Antonio and Aransas Pass refused to buy Collins land and laid track three miles west, the town's buildings were loaded onto train cars and moved to the new junction called Bandana — later renamed Alice. By 1894 Alice was the busiest cattle-shipping point in South Texas. Abandoned rail towns and cattle pens commonly generated folklore of lost payrolls and merchant strongboxes when commerce shifted overnight. Coordinates mark the former Collins townsite about three miles east of present-day Alice.