City of Caldwell
Caldwell, Burleson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1840 the Republic of Texas Congress annexed to Milam County all of Washington County north of Yegua Creek and west of the Brazos River. The name Caldwell, which honored Mathew "Old Paint" Caldwell, a noted pioneer and a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, was chosen for a settlement that would become the seat of a future county. Following a land title dispute, this site was selected for the proposed town. Located on the Old San Antonio Road, it had been settled earlier by Virginia native Lewis L. Chiles, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto who had operated a trading post on Davidson Creek. George B. Erath platted the town of Caldwell in 1840. Streets running parallel to the Old San Antonio road were named for native animals and intersecting streets were named for the commissioners who had selected the townsite. When Burleson County was created six years later, Caldwell became the permanent seat of government. Incorporated in 1891, Caldwell developed as a major agricultural shipping center with the completion of area rail lines in 1890 and 1912. Since the 1840s the city has played a vital role in the region through its steady commercial growth and rich heritage. (1892)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Laid out in 1840 by surveyor George B. Erath on the Old San Antonio Road, Caldwell was named for Mathew 'Old Paint' Caldwell, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. The site had already drawn San Jacinto veteran Lewis L. Chiles, who ran a nearby trading post. When Burleson County formed in 1846 the town became its permanent seat, and rail lines in 1890 and 1912 made it a major agricultural shipping center.
Why it matters
Its founding captures the westward push of settlement in the Republic of Texas and the way roads and railroads turned frontier townsites into enduring county seats.
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Related people
- · Mathew Caldwell
- · Lewis L. Chiles
- · George B. Erath
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Burleson County
Caldwell, TX
Burleson County sits in the rich Brazos River basin, settled as early as 1825 along El Camino Real, the old King's Highway. Here in 1830 Mexico built the fort of Tenoxtitlan, between Sterling Robertson's colony to the north and Stephen F. Austin's to the south. Surveyor George B. Erath platted Caldwell in 1840 and later authored the 1846 bill creating the county, named for Gen. Edward Burleson — soldier of Texas independence, congressman, and vice president of the Republic. Plantation agriculture gave way after the Civil War, and railroads arrived in the 1880s.
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Originally called Yellow Prairie and settled by Alexander Thomson, Jr. — an early Texas patriot and partner of colonizer Sterling C. Robertson — this community relocated to the railroad tracks when the line came through in 1880. It was renamed in 1884 for Capt. H.C. Chriesman, a surveyor for Stephen F. Austin. Today it serves the surrounding ranches.
Cooks Point
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Cooks Point took root about 1840 where a colonial road from the southeast met the old San Antonio Road, a natural crossroads in the earliest years of the Republic of Texas. Settler Gabriel Jackson kept a two-story log cabin trading post here, and the community took its name from surveyor Silas L. Cooke, who mapped much of the surrounding land. It endures today as a rural village.
Deanville
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Deanville grew up on the Texas prairie in the years after the Civil War, when merchant James L. Dean laid out a town in 1872 beside a branch of the great Chisholm Trail, the dusty highway up which millions of longhorns were driven to northern railheads. A post office followed in 1877, and when the Houston & Texas Central pushed its rails through in 1913 the little community gained a lifeline to wider markets. The Sons of Hermann lodge, organized in 1916, kept the town's social calendar alive with its long-running Fourth of July celebration.