Site of the Crockett Hotel
Crockett, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
James H. Collard, a surveyor, opened a general store on this site in 1837. Four years later he sold the business to Thomas Collins (1800-1869). Members of the Collins family ran the store until 1890 when William Berry (b.1856) constructed the Pickwick Hotel. Two brothers, F.A. and J.H. Smith, bought the building in 1921. It was reopened as the Davy Crockett Hotel in 1927. During construction of a new courthouse (1938-39), it housed county offices. The Crockett Hotel Co. purchased the business in 1939. Ray and Alta Cornelius served as managers until a fire destroyed it in 1972. (1980)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This corner of Crockett has hosted commerce since 1837, when surveyor James H. Collard opened a general store here. The Collins family kept a store on the spot for decades until 1890, when the Pickwick Hotel rose in its place. Rechristened for frontier hero Davy Crockett in 1927, the hotel even housed county offices during a courthouse rebuild before fire finally destroyed it in 1972.
Why it matters
A single downtown lot's evolution from frontier store to landmark hotel traces the commercial heartbeat of an East Texas county seat across more than a century.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Crockett is one of the oldest towns in Texas. It was laid out in the 1830s as the seat of Houston County, in the piney woods of East Texas, during the first years of the Republic. The town was named for David Crockett, the Tennessee frontiersman and congressman who had died at the Alamo in 1836 and was already a legend among Texans.
East Texas was the main gateway for American settlers coming in overland from the southern states, and frontier county seats like Crockett were where courts sat, deeds were recorded, and goods changed hands. A store on the town square was more than a business. It was a supply line to a frontier.
Over the following century the town changed along with the rest of the country, from frontier trading post to railroad-era town to 20th-century county seat, and this one downtown lot changed with it.
People & events
The story begins in 1837 with James H. Collard, a surveyor. In a new county where land was being measured, claimed, and sold, a surveyor was a key figure, and Collard also opened a general store on this site. Four years later he sold it to Thomas Collins, and members of the Collins family kept a store here for roughly half a century.
In 1890 the store gave way to a hotel. William Berry built the Pickwick Hotel on the lot, at a time when traveling salesmen, lawyers attending court, and other visitors to the county seat needed rooms. In 1921 two brothers, F. A. and J. H. Smith, bought the building, and in 1927 they reopened it as the Davy Crockett Hotel, tying it by name to the frontier hero the town already honored.
The hotel also served the public in other ways. While a new courthouse was being built in 1938 and 1939, county offices worked out of the building, so for a time the county's business was done from a hotel. The Crockett Hotel Co. bought the business in 1939, and Ray and Alta Cornelius managed it for many years until fire destroyed it in 1972.
Its place in the American story
The history of this lot reads like a small-town summary of American commercial life. First came a frontier general store, the store a surveyor might open while land was still being parceled out. Then a family business carried across generations. Then a hotel built to serve travelers in a time of trains and courthouse traffic.
The 1927 renaming says something too. A century after his death, Davy Crockett was still a strong draw, and American towns put frontier heroes on hotels, schools, and businesses as a way of claiming their place in a shared national story.
The hotel's loss to fire in 1972 is a familiar story as well. Across the country, downtown hotels that once anchored county seats burned, closed, or lost business as highways and motels changed how Americans traveled. Many disappeared without a marker. This one was remembered.
If you visit
Stand at the site and imagine the layers: a surveyor's store with barrels and bolts of cloth, then decades of the Collins family behind the counter, then a hotel lobby full of travelers, and for a while even county clerks at work here while their courthouse went up.
Crockett's downtown is a pleasant place to walk, with its courthouse square at the center of the old town. Take your time and look at how the square is laid out. It still follows the pattern of a 19th-century county seat.
The town fits well into an East Texas road trip through some of the state's oldest settled country, where piney woods and old county seats carry history from the Republic era onward. For families, the Davy Crockett connection is an easy way into a larger conversation about how legends and real history overlap.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · James H. Collard
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Crockett
Crockett, TX
Founded in 1837 and named for David Crockett, who had passed through on his way to the Alamo the year before, Crockett grew into a hub of the young Republic of Texas frontier. Its fortified log courthouse sheltered settlers during conflicts with Native peoples, and by the Civil War the town hosted a camp of instruction. As a telegraph and stagecoach station, it tied the surrounding farming and timber country into the wider South.
Five Courthouses of Houston County
Crockett, TX
In 1837 President Sam Houston authorized Houston County, the very first county created by the young Republic of Texas, and veterans of the Battle of San Jacinto named it for their commander and its seat for their Tennessee friend David Crockett. The first courthouse here was a log fortress against Indian raids, and a remarkable run of fire and misfortune destroyed courthouse after courthouse across the next century. Five successive buildings tell the story of a frontier county seat repeatedly rebuilding itself.
Andrew Edwards Gossett
Crockett, TX
Andrew Edwards Gossett (1812–1890) donated the townsite that became Crockett, the seat of Houston County, which was carved from Nacogdoches territory in 1837. Giving land from his own colonist's grant, he provided the young Republic of Texas county a central place to conduct its government. His gift literally put the town on the map.
First Methodist Church
Crockett, TX
Formed in 1839 with Henderson Palmer as pastor and the noted minister Littleton Fowler presiding, this is Crockett's first congregation and among the oldest in Texas. Methodists shared space with other denominations until building their own frame sanctuary here in 1864; the present brick church, raised in 1901–1902 from brick fired on site, remains the oldest house of worship in the city.