Gabriel Mills
Liberty Hill, Williamson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Samuel Mather settled here in 1849, building a gristmill on the North San Gabriel in 1852. John G. Stewart opened a store near the mill. A small log cabin was in use by 1854 for church, school and lodge meetings. A post office was established in 1858, Mather being postmaster. W. L. Brizendine owned the mill by 1865, adding a cotton gin. Known as Mather's Mill, Brizendine Mill, or Gabriel Mills, the village thrived until Austin & Northwestern Railroad bypassed it (1881); then a decline began. The post office closed in 1905, and by the 1920s the town itself had disappeared. (1975)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Samuel Mather built a gristmill on the North San Gabriel River in 1852, a small community took root around it—complete with a store, a post office, and a log cabin that doubled as church, school, and lodge. Under later owner W. L. Brizendine the mill added a cotton gin, and the village of Gabriel Mills thrived on the traffic of area farmers. But when the Austin & Northwestern Railroad bypassed it in 1881, the town slowly withered, its post office closing in 1905 and its buildings gone by the 1920s.
Why it matters
Gabriel Mills captures the rise and fall of countless small Texas towns whose fortunes lived and died with the arrival—or absence—of the railroad.
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Related people
- · Samuel Mather
- · W. L. Brizendine
- · John G. Stewart
Themes & tags
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