City of Killeen
Killeen, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
When the tracks of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad were extended from Temple to Lampasas in the early 1880s, a switching station was installed near the midway point. The settlement that grew up around the site became the town of Killeen, named for Frank P. Killeen, a native of Ireland and a senior official of the rail company. The first train arrived on May 15, 1882, marking the beginning of the town. Many early residents of Killeen came from the nearby pioneer communities of Sugar Loaf (6 mi. N) and Palo Alto (3.5 mi.NE). Town lots were sold by the GC&SF Railroad and one of the earliest structures built was a wooden community school which opened in the fall of 1882. By the following year Killeen was the site of two gristmills and a cotton gin. The town was incorporated in 1893 and W.E. Hudson was elected to serve as the first mayor. In the early years of Killeen's development, the town was primarily an agricultural center for the production of cotton, grain, wool and cattle. In 1942 it became the home of Camp Hood, now Fort Hood. The federal installation's growth as a major military base has had a dramatic impact on the city, making it one of the fastest growing towns in Texas. (1982)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Killeen was born in 1882 as a switching station at the midpoint of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad's line from Temple to Lampasas, taking its name from an Irish-born rail official, Frank P. Killeen. Settlers from older communities like Sugar Loaf and Palo Alto gathered around the depot, and by 1883 the town had a school, gristmills, and a cotton gin. Long an agricultural center, Killeen was transformed in 1942 by the arrival of Camp Hood — now Fort Hood — into one of the fastest-growing towns in Texas.
Why it matters
The town shows the double engine of Texas growth: the railroad that created it and the military base that remade it in the twentieth century.
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Related people
- · Frank P. Killeen
- · W.E. Hudson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Bethel Primitive Baptist Church
Killeen, TX
Bethel Primitive Baptist Church began around 1864 in the Palo Alto community northeast of present Killeen, sharing a Union Church building with other denominations. When the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad cut through Bell County in 1882, the new town of Killeen drew Palo Alto's residents away, and by 1889 the congregation had relocated to this site. Its steep gable roof, Gothic-detailed doors, and lintel-capped windows make it likely the oldest church building in Killeen.
Ogletree Stagestop and Post Office
Copperas Cove, TX
When Marsden Ogletree brought his family west from Georgia and took up an 1878 land grant, the stone house he raised became far more than a home. It doubled as a grain store and as a stopping place on the stage line running between Lampasas and Belton, and once the mail began arriving by coach, a post office opened here in 1879 with Ogletree as its first postmaster. When the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad laid out a new townsite nearby in 1882, the community's center — post office and all — drifted toward the tracks, leaving the old stagestop behind.
Smith Cemetery
Lampasas County, TX
In the years after the Civil War, settlers pushed into the rolling prairies of central Texas, and the Browning Community took root in the 1870s along the Old Belton Road—a lifeline that carried goods, travelers, and mail between frontier towns. John R. Browning, his wife Julia, and their children were among the first families to put down roots here, farming the land and building the ties that knit a rural neighborhood together. The cemetery that survives is the enduring record of those pioneer households.
Site of Childers-Shanklin Mill
Belton, TX
Robert Childers, a pioneer settler and veteran of the 1836 Army of Texas, built the first water-powered mill in Bell County here in 1847. Sold in 1856 to G. W. Shanklin, who was said to have built the best water race in Texas, the site also served as a stage stand on the Old Military Road and a crossing point for cattle bound up the trail. It was a hub where settlement, commerce, and travel converged on the early Texas frontier.