Newport

Trinity County, TX

In the late 1850s, as steamboats and flatboats still carried cotton and goods along East Texas waterways, the town of Sebastopol rose as a busy shipping point in what is now Trinity County. Its name echoed the Russian naval station made famous during the Crimean War, then fresh in the world's headlines. Like many antebellum river landings, Sebastopol thrived only until the railroads arrived and rerouted commerce, leaving the town to fade.

Point Blank, TX

Isaac Jones was a self-reliant pioneer who moved to the Trinity River country in 1834, taking up a Mexican land grant on the river's west bank while Texas was still under Mexican rule. He served briefly in the army of the young Texas Republic between 1836 and 1838 and later ran a ferry at Jones Bluff, a vital river crossing for travelers and goods.

Lovelady, TX

Lovelady arose when Houston and Great Northern Railroad investors ran their line through a grant belonging to Cyrus Lovelady, drawing settlers from nearby communities like Nevil's Prairie, Pennington, and Weldon. With its post office, livery, blacksmith, and hotels, the town quickly became a market and shipping point; by 1876 school met in a log house, and an 1881 two-story building was shared by Baptists and a Masonic lodge. Incorporated in 1927, it settled into life as a center for ranching and pulpwood.

New Waverly, TX

Set on land purchased in 1853, this cemetery holds the pioneer settlers of Waverly, including men who died of cholera on the journey from Alabama and were later reinterred here by their families. The nearby Waverly Institute set aside acreage for burials, and before the Civil War the town was a thriving cultural and educational center. When the railroad bypassed it in the 1880s and New Waverly rose instead, the old town faded—but its cemetery endures.