Maxdale Bridge
Killeen, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In July 1913, the Bell County Commissioners Court, in response to repeated flooding in this area, approved construction of a bridge at this site to provide access to Killeen for residents of the Maxdale Community. Before it was completed, however, the bridge was destroyed in a flood. The Bell County Commissioners Court contracted again with Hess & Skinner Engineers, agents for the Missouri Valley Bridge Company, to build this bridge. Completed in 1914, the Maxdale Bridge employs a Parker truss design, which allows for maximum strength at mid-span. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1990
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After repeated flooding cut the Maxdale community off from Killeen, Bell County commissioners approved a bridge here in 1913—only to see it swept away by a flood before completion. They contracted again with Hess & Skinner Engineers, agents for the Missouri Valley Bridge Company, and the replacement opened in 1914 using a Parker truss for maximum strength at mid-span. It has carried traffic across the crossing ever since.
Why it matters
The Maxdale Bridge captures the early-twentieth-century push to conquer rural Texas rivers with modern steel engineering, knitting isolated communities into the wider road network.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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.
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.
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.
City of Killeen
Killeen, TX
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.