Town of Lovelady
Lovelady, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded by Houston and Great Northern Railroad investors as line was built through grant of Cyrus Lovelady, near communities of Nevil's Prairie, Pennington, and Weldon. Post office opened on Nov. 8, 1972. Town soon had livery, stables, blacksmith shop, and hotels, prospering as market and shipping point. By 1876 day school and Sunday school were held in a log house. A two-story structure was shared 1881-88 by Baptists and Lovelady Lodge No. 539, A.F.&A.M. Churches of other faiths were built later. The town, incorporated in 1927, is now center for ranching, pulpwood production.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
Lovelady is a classic railroad town, one of countless American communities that sprang up wherever the tracks decided to run.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Cyrus Lovelady
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Read's Opening
Crockett, TX
This broad prairie was a favored nineteenth-century route to and from the Trinity River before Robert Newton Read and his wife Susan moved here from Arkansas by 1850, giving the landscape its name. The Reads farmed the opening, bought land, ran commercial ventures in Crockett, and donated ground for an African American Presbyterian church east of town. Though the family moved on to Mineola in 1876, Read's Opening remains woven into Houston County's history.
Hall's Bluff
Crockett, TX
Marylander Joshua James Hall bought a Trinity River land grant in 1839 and, with his son James Madison Hall, opened a port and ferry that became a shipping point for Houston County's settlers. A community of stores, churches, a post office, and a school grew up around the crossing through the mid-19th century. Unreliable river shipping and the arrival of the railroads in the 1870s drained the port's traffic, and most residents drifted away.
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.
John T. Smith
Crockett, TX
New York-born John Titus Smith came to Texas from Georgia in 1849 and settled on a cotton plantation at McKenzie's Bend on the Trinity River, where he operated the steamboat Ida Reese. He served as chief justice of Houston County in the 1850s and later in the state legislature, and fought in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. He and his wife Elizabeth raised a large family before his death in 1874.