Bellville
Bellville, Austin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Brothers Thomas and James Bell came to this area from Florida in 1822 with Stephen F. Austin's colony and acquired about 2,000 acres of land in 1837. Thomas Bell offered a portion of his land at this site for a new townsite to replace San Felipe as the county seat; his offer was accepted by voters in 1846. Pioneers from such faraway places as England, Germany, Connecticut, Maryland and Georgia were drawn to the new town, which was platted in 1848 and soon called Bellville by popular vote. A courthouse and jail were erected in 1848 and Bellville's first hotel opened in 1849. Within ten years, the booming town boasted about fifteen businesses. The Civil War left the town nearly deserted, and as in many similar Texas towns it was difficult to rebuild during the Reconstruction era. Positive growth began about 1877 as new business ventures took root. In 1880 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway arrived in Bellville, and the population doubled rapidly. The Episcopal and German Methodist churches organized about 1881, and the Bellville Standard newspaper was established in 1882. A telephone company began operations and a library was established by 1886. Cotton production rose in the late 1890s and more than 10,000 bales were shipped each growing season. By the turn of the century Bellville was thriving both culturally and economically. Oil replaced cotton as the area's major industry in 1915 when black gold was discovered around Bellville. Development of local oil fields further spurred the town's growth and continued to help support Bellville throughout the 20th century. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Brothers Thomas and James Bell arrived with Austin's colony in 1822, and by 1846 Thomas's land offer won Bellville the county seat over old San Felipe. Settlers from England, Germany and across the eastern states poured in, and after the hard Reconstruction years the Santa Fe railroad's 1880 arrival doubled the population. Cotton, and later a 1915 oil strike, kept the town thriving through the twentieth century.
Why it matters
Bellville's rise from Austin-colony frontier to railroad-and-oil boomtown compresses the whole arc of nineteenth-century Texas growth into a single Austin County seat.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Thomas Bell
- · James Bell
- · Stephen F. Austin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
John Bell Lewis Home
Bellville, TX
John Bell Lewis carried an unusual pedigree into the Texas frontier — his grandmother was George Washington's sister — but he made his own mark in Austin County after riding out the Civil War in Confederate service. As Reconstruction-era sheriff and tax collector he saw the need for local banking, helped charter two Bellville banks, and famously talked landowners into donating right-of-way so the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad would run through town rather than bypass it. The 1875 house he built, in a style caught between Greek Revival restraint and Victorian ornament, still stands as a record of a small-town booster's long reach.
Early Texas River Steamers
Brenham, TX
In pioneer Texas, hopeful merchants tried to make the Brazos River a commercial highway, with Washington-on-the-Brazos as a key distribution point for the state's rich cotton and sugar country. The first steamer reached Washington in 1840, and by 1849 its docks bustled with boats bound for New Orleans. But shallow, flood-prone, driftwood-choked rivers doomed most such ventures, and by 1865 the era of Texas river steamers had passed.
Sealy Cemetery
Sealy, TX
In 1879 railroad agent George Sealy bought nearly 12,000 acres from the old township of San Felipe de Austin to establish a depot, and the town of Sealy quickly grew up around it. The cemetery recorded its first burial—an infant, Annie Fowlkes—in 1883, and families bought plots from the railroad until the company donated the land to trustees in 1887. A ladies' society organized in 1904 rallied community support, even launching a Christmas bazaar that became a beloved local tradition.
Sealy
Sealy, TX
Sealy sprang up in 1879 along the new Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad, taking its name from Galveston businessman and railroad president George Sealy. A depot, roundhouse, turntable, and machine shops made it a busy division point between Galveston and Temple, with the railroad as its chief employer and trains rumbling through daily. When the division point moved to Bellville in 1899, Sealy leaned on cotton, additional rail lines, and diversified business to keep thriving, incorporating in 1949.