Meansville, three miles southeast, grew around Colonel William Marshall Means, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto who came to San Patricio County with his family in the 1850s and settled southeast of present Odem. Means served as county sheriff from 1862 to 1867. The community centered on a two-story building erected by the Methodist congregation in 1874 that also served as a schoolhouse, ecumenical church, and community center. By January 1876 the settlement was thriving and seemed headed for a promising future, but after three of Colonel Means' sons went on a shooting spree in Papalote in Bee County, a posse that included San Patricio County Sheriff Ed Garner tracked them to their father's ranch, where Colonel Means was killed. In August, Ed Garner was shot while attending church services. Alley Means was convicted of murder but later pardoned by Governor John Ireland. Residents lived in fear until the Texas Rangers ordered the Means families to leave the area, and by the early 1880s they had sold their San Patricio County holdings. The school building was sold in 1881. Kaleta, five miles southeast, was settled by several families in the late 1880s, who soon built a one-room school that may have filled the void left by the closing of the Meansville school. Frank S. Rachal became the first postmaster in 1894. The school closed in 1910 and the post office was discontinued in 1914, though the stagecoach line continued delivering local mail to the home of former postmaster J.D. Willis and his family. By the time of the devastating 1919 storm, the stage line had closed and Kaleta had disappeared from the map.