Old Boston
Old Boston, Bowie County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established while part of Mexico; to serve plantations on Red River. Mail came horseback from Arkansas. Named for W. J. Boston, first storekeeper. A battalion was formed here to fight in Texas Revolution. First Bowie County Seat, 1841. Large stores surrounded square and two-story brick courthouse. Became educational center with 3 fine private schools. Texas governors Hardin R. Runnels and S. W. T. Lanham have lived here. New Boston (4 mi. N) founded on railroad, 1877. Boston (1 mi. S), exact county center, made county seat 1890, and this became "Old" Boston. (1966)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Boston began while this land was still part of Mexico, a store and mail stop serving the plantations along the Red River, and took its name from W. J. Boston, its first storekeeper. A battalion formed here to fight in the Texas Revolution, and in 1841 the town became the first seat of Bowie County, its square lined with stores and a two-story brick courthouse, and home to three private schools and even two future Texas governors. When the railroad bypassed it in 1877 and the county seat moved away, the once-thriving town faded into "Old" Boston.
Why it matters
Old Boston's rise and decline traces the whole arc of a Texas frontier town — Mexican borderland to revolutionary staging ground to county seat — until the railroad's route left it behind as a near ghost town.
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Related people
- · W. J. Boston
- · Hardin R. Runnels
- · S. W. T. Lanham
Related events
- · Texas Revolution
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Jones-Tyson House
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When James W. and Laura Williams Jones built this home in 1883, they brought a piece of the Upper South with them — North Carolina architectural styling and garden plantings transplanted to the pinewoods of Bowie County. The house reflects the migration of settlers who carried regional tastes and traditions westward into Texas after the Civil War.
Bowie County
New Boston, TX
Carved from Red River County land in December 1840 and organized the next year, Bowie County honors James Bowie, the Long Expedition veteran who died defending the Alamo. The country had been home to agricultural Indians before 1800 and was charted for Anglo-American settlement in 1819, back when it was still frontier of the fledgling Texas Republic. Its county seat wandered among DeKalb, Old Boston, Texarkana, and Boston as railroads and farming, lumber, and manufacturing took hold.
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