Bethea Creek
Riverside, Walker County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A tributary of the Trinity River, Bethea Creek (pronounced Buh-thay) is named for John and Elizabeth Bethea, pioneer settlers of the area. John settled in present-day Walker County in the 1830s and was an early gristmill operator and postmaster in the nearby riverport settlement of Newport, now a ghost town. Soon after Riverside was established along a rail line in the early 1870s, the Betheas moved to the town and operated a gristmill. This stream, which bears their name, remains as a symbol of the contributions made by the area's earliest settlers.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Bethea Creek, a tributary of the Trinity River, carries the name of John and Elizabeth Bethea, who settled in present-day Walker County in the 1830s. John ran a gristmill and served as postmaster at Newport, a riverport that has since faded into a ghost town, before the couple moved to the new rail town of Riverside in the early 1870s. The stream keeps their name where the settlements they served have vanished.
Why it matters
The creek's name is a small monument to the pioneer millers and postmasters whose river towns rose and fell with the coming of the railroads across East Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John Bethea
- · Elizabeth Bethea
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Newport
Walker County, TX
Newport was founded in 1846 by Joseph Werner, a German emigrant who staked his hopes on the traffic of the Trinity River. Like many antebellum Texas river towns, its fortunes rose and fell with the water: when steamboat navigation on the Trinity declined, the town was left behind and abandoned.
Akin Hill
Walker County, TX
This hill marked a landmark on the old Colony Road running between Huntsville and Ryan's Ferry on the Trinity River. It takes its name from Thomas Akin, a Mississippi native who came to Texas in 1853 with his wife Ruth and built a cabin at its base in the rural community of McGuire. During the Civil War Akin rode as a courier for Confederate General John B. Hood while his wife moved their family of seven children to safety farther east.
John Henley Hill House
Trinity, TX
Crowning a hill among magnolias and oaks, the John Henley Hill house rose between 1880 and 1882 on one of the earliest plantation sites in the Elisha Roberts Survey. Hill, an Indiana-born widower who married his late wife's sister, came to Texas after a chance meeting at the 1876 Centennial International Exposition led the family to a colony in Walker County before they settled in Trinity County. On 200 acres purchased in 1880, he built this two-story carpenter gothic home, rich with sawn brackets, arched openings, and limestone fireplaces. It survives as a fine example of rural Texas architecture and pioneer settlement.
Ranald McDonald House
Trinity, TX
Ranald McDonald settled along the Trinity River after marrying Mollie Turner, daughter of an early Trinity pioneer, and in 1890 hired builder John Denton Gibbs to raise this Victorian house on stone piers. He kept bees, honey, buggies, and wagons here, and his son Alexander later built a power plant on the property that gave Trinity its first electrical system.