Salado
Salado, Bell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Salado was officially established in 1859 when Col. E. S. C. Robertson donated land for a townsite and for a college. Col. Hermon Aiken drew a plat for the town, which developed along its main street. However, there had been activity here long before this time, as Native Americans and Spanish Explorers, among others, came through the spring-fed land. The explorers used the term salado, meaning salty, in referring to this area, likely confusing Salado Creek and the Lampasas River. By 1852, a post office opened to serve a growing community on the Burney and Blair Stage Line from Austin to Waco. Several hotels opened in the settlement, including the Salado Hotel. By the 1860s, Salado developed a thriving economy based on farming ranching, milling, mineral baths, and education. Salado College opened in 1860, attracting many individuals to the growing community. Additional schools were built, including Thomas Arnold High School, which was established by Dr. Samuel Jones, and a school on land donated by W. K. Hamblen, which closed in 1969 and became a community center. In 1873, the first Texas branch of the Grange, a national fraternal agrarian order, opened in Salado. Salado hosted Bell countys first Agricultural Fair that same year; the fair moved to Belton in 1876. By the 1890s, several churched had also organized in Salado. Salado became a virtual ghost town in the early decades of the 20th century; the population was around 250 in 1950, but since that time, Salado has experienced continued growth. Revitalization occurred when retirees moved here and with promotion of the arts. In 2000, Salado again incorporated, and today remains a viable community into the 21st century. (2009)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Salado was formally laid out in 1859 when Col. E. S. C. Robertson donated land for a townsite and a college, though travelers had long passed through its spring-fed land. By the 1860s it thrived on farming, ranching, milling, mineral baths, and education, with Salado College opening in 1860 and the first Texas chapter of the Grange organizing here in 1873. The town nearly emptied in the early twentieth century before retirees and the arts revived it, and it re-incorporated in 2000.
Why it matters
Salado traces the full life cycle of a Texas town—frontier founding, an education-driven heyday, near-abandonment, and modern rebirth.
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Related people
- · E. S. C. Robertson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Corn Hill Community
Jarrell, TX
Corn Hill was among the earliest communities in Williamson County, named by county judge John E. King for the hilltop home and cornfield he built in 1852. A stop on the stage line from Georgetown to Fort Gates, it gained a post office in 1855 and grew into a farming village with academies, a college, churches, cotton gins, and even a telephone company. When the Bartlett Western Railway bypassed it in 1909, steam engines hauled homes and businesses two miles north to the new town of Jarrell, leaving Corn Hill a dispersed reminder of its agrarian past.
First Baptist Church of Salado
Salado, TX
Baptist revivals were held on the banks of Salado Creek as early as 1854, and in 1864 eleven men and women organized a congregation in the chapel of Salado College. The church grew quickly, built a two-story sanctuary shared with a Masonic hall in 1878, and sent missionaries as far as Brazil. Among its notable members was pastor George W. Baines — great-grandfather of President Lyndon B. Johnson — who later led Mary Hardin-Baylor College.
Louisa Adeline (Addie) Barton
Salado, TX
Addie Barton (1858-1921) moved to Salado as a girl so she could attend Salado College, and after graduating she became a teacher. Answering a call to mission work in 1883, she was commissioned by her home Baptist church and went to Saltillo, Mexico, teaching at the Madero Institute and other girls' schools. The upheavals of the Mexican Revolution forced her home in 1910, where she served refugees and the needy until her death.
Dodd's Creek Bridge
Salado, TX
This 87-foot lenticular truss bridge, its curved top and bottom chords forming a lens shape, embodies a rare American bridge type patented by Connecticut's William O. Douglas in 1878. Through salesman William Payson, the Berlin Iron Bridge Company sold at least a dozen such spans to Texas, and this one—first built over Cowhouse Creek—was among four the Coryell County court ordered in 1889. Recognized as one of the few lenticular bridges west of the Mississippi, it was relocated to Dodd's Creek in 1997 to ease traffic and enhance the Salado Historic District.