In This Grave Rest James Goucher and Five Members of His Family

Lincoln, TX

This marker commemorates the King's Highway, or Camino Real, the Spanish colonial road system that once linked the missions and settlements of Texas and stretched toward Mexico and Louisiana. Placed in 1918 by the Daughters of the American Revolution and the State of Texas, it was part of an early-20th-century effort to trace and memorialize the historic route. The road carried soldiers, missionaries, traders, and settlers for well over a century.

Smithville, TX

The Smithville area was noted as early as 1691, when a Spanish expedition sighted an Indian-named lagoon still known today as Shipp's Lake. A ferry crossed the Colorado here in 1836 and steamboats plied the river until the 1860s, but the town's fate was sealed by the railroad: when the Taylor, Bastrop & Houston line arrived in 1887, "Old Smithville" picked up and moved to the tracks. Legend says a coin toss kept the name Smithville over "Burlesonville" before the town incorporated in 1895.

Round Top, TX

Samuel Knight Lewis left a Mississippi plantation to bring his family to Texas in 1838, serving Austin County in the Republic of Texas House of Representatives before settling near Round Top in 1848. Sensing opportunity along a planned stage route, he bought land whose home grew into a welcome stopping place for travelers, later known as the Winedale Inn. Given to the University of Texas in the 1960s, the property became the heart of the Winedale Historical Center.

Lexington, TX

Settled in 1837 during the days of the Republic of Texas, Lexington took its name from the Massachusetts town where the American Revolution began. The Tonkawa were the area's first inhabitants; the first Anglo settler, surveyor and teacher James Shaw, arrived on a land grant earned for service at the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto. Early cotton faltered, but the town revived in 1890 when the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railroad reached it.