Old Springfield
Mexia, Limestone County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Named for the large spring on townsite donated Jan. 6, 1838, by Moses Herrin, who gave 4 lots to any person agreeing to settle in the town. 12 families later in 1838 were forced out by Indian hostility. Post office was established in 1846. When Limestone County was created April 11, 1846, Springfield-- its only town of any size-- became county seat. First courthouse was built 1848 near Navasota River; new 2-story brick courthouse in 1856 on the hill. Home of Springfield District of Methodist Church from which stemmed the Northwest Texas Conference. Also had active Baptist and Disciples of Christ churches. Springfield College was established, but closed during the Civil War. The Navasota Stock Raisers Association was organized here. When Houston & Texas Central Railroad was built some miles to the East in 1870, population dwindled. In 1873 there were 2 great fires in the town-- one burning the courthouse. Surviving buildings were moved away. Groesbeck became the county seat. The old cemetery and Springfield Lake, both in Fort Parker State Park, retain the historic name of the once important town. Lake Springfield provides recreation, irrigation and municipal water. (1966)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1838 around a spring donated by Moses Herrin, Old Springfield grew into the seat of newly formed Limestone County by 1846, complete with a two-story brick courthouse, a Methodist district that seeded the Northwest Texas Conference, and a short-lived college. The town's fortunes turned when the Houston & Texas Central Railroad passed it by in 1870, and two devastating fires in 1873 — one consuming the courthouse — hastened its end as buildings were carted off and the county seat moved to Groesbeck. Today only the old cemetery and Springfield Lake, inside Fort Parker State Park, carry the name of what was once the county's leading town.
Why it matters
Springfield's rise and abandonment is a textbook example of how a single railroad routing decision could make or unmake a nineteenth-century American town, leaving a ghost town where a county seat once stood.
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Related people
- · Moses Herrin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Built in 1834 by the Parker family — leaders of the first Predestinarian Baptist body to reach Texas — this private stockade sheltered several allied families on the Central Texas frontier. On May 18, 1836, a Comanche raid killed several of the men and carried off captives, among them nine-year-old Cynthia Ann Parker. She grew up among the Comanche, married Chief Peta Nocona, and bore Quanah Parker, who would become the last chief of the Comanche.
Plummer Cemetery
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L. T. M. Plummer and his wife Rachel, born a Parker, reached this part of Limestone County in 1834 and received a Mexican land grant of over 3,000 acres. In the 1836 raid on Fort Parker, Rachel, her son James, and her cousin Cynthia Ann Parker were taken captive by Comanches; Rachel was ransomed in 1838 but died within a year, as did her infant son Wilson. Grieving, L. T. M. set aside an acre as a family burial ground, where more than a hundred Plummer descendants now rest.
Faulkenberry Cemetery
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David Faulkenberry, born in South Carolina about 1795, came to Texas in 1833 as part of Daniel Parker's Pilgrim Church and moved to present-day Limestone County in 1835, helping build cabins and Fort Parker for defense. He and his son Evan were killed in an 1837 attack near Fort Houston, and his widow Nancy — who later married Elisha Anglin — established this cemetery, deeded as a graveyard by her descendants in 1874. Its graves include two state representatives, five sheriffs, an early Texas Ranger, and veterans reaching back to the Texas Revolution.