Waller County
Hempstead, Waller County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Created from Austin and Grimes counties, April 28, and organized Aug. 16, 1873. Named for Edwin Waller (1800-1861), a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, 1836; Postmaster General, Texas Republic; First mayor of Austin. Site of rich 1831-1874 Groce plantations, later home of sculptress Elisabet Ney. Hempstead, founded 1857 during building of Houston & Texas Railroad, an important transportation center, is the county seat. Since 1876, county has been site of Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical College. Economy is based on industry, diversified agriculture and oil production.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Carved from Austin and Grimes counties in 1873, Waller County was named for Edwin Waller, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and first mayor of Austin. Its soil holds a dense history: the rich Groce plantations of 1831–1874, the later home of celebrated sculptor Elisabet Ney, and the railroad town of Hempstead that became the county seat. Since 1876 it has been home to Prairie View A&M, one of Texas's foundational institutions for Black higher education.
Why it matters
The county binds together plantation slavery, the founding of a historically Black land-grant college, and the reach of the railroad — a compact map of the forces that made Reconstruction-era Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Waller County was created in 1873 from parts of Austin and Grimes counties, during the Reconstruction years when Texas was reorganizing after the Civil War. The land itself, though, had been settled long before, in the time of Anglo-American colonization in Mexican Texas.
In that earlier era, the rich bottomlands along the Brazos River drew settlers who built cotton plantations worked by enslaved people. The Groce plantations, which the marker dates from 1831 to 1874, were part of that plantation economy, which shaped the region for decades.
After the war and emancipation, railroads and new institutions began to remake the area. Hempstead, founded in 1857 while the Houston and Texas Central Railroad was being built, grew into a transportation hub. Within a few years of the county's founding, a college for Black Texans opened here, a major change in a place so shaped by slavery.
People & events
The county is named for Edwin Waller, born in 1800 and died in 1861, whose public career spanned the birth of Texas. He signed the Texas Declaration of Independence in 1836, served as postmaster general of the Republic of Texas, and became the first mayor of Austin when the new capital city was being laid out.
The Groce family's plantations made this area one of the wealthiest farming regions in early Texas. Later, the land became home to Elisabet Ney, a German-born sculptor who settled in Texas and became one of its most celebrated artists, known for her sculptures of Texas founders. Her presence in a rural plantation county was striking, and she remains a memorable figure in Texas history.
In 1876, the county became home to the institution now known as Prairie View A&M University, founded to provide agricultural and mechanical education to Black Texans. Its founding made Waller County a key place in the history of Black education in Texas.
Its place in the American story
Waller County contains, in one place, several big themes in American history. Its plantations reflect the cotton economy built on slavery in the South. Its railroad town reflects the way rail transformed the American interior. Its college reflects the post-emancipation push for education among freed people and their descendants.
Prairie View A&M grew from the era of land-grant colleges, when states built public institutions focused on practical education. It has long been one of the most important historically Black universities in Texas, and its history is part of the national story of Black higher education.
And through Edwin Waller and Elisabet Ney, the county connects to how Texas built its government and later celebrated its founding. It is a compact place with a remarkably wide reach.
If you visit
This marker is in Hempstead, the county seat and a town that grew up around the railroad. As you look around, think about its origins as a transportation center and how rail lines shaped the town's growth and character.
To see more of the county's story, consider a visit to Prairie View A&M University, nearby in the county, whose campus represents nearly a century and a half of education. Fans of Texas art may also be interested in learning more about Elisabet Ney, whose life and work are still celebrated across the state.
Waller County sits between Houston and the Brazos River country, so it fits naturally into a drive through southeast Texas history, from early colonial settlements to the railroad towns that came later.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Edwin Waller
- · Elisabet Ney
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Liendo
Hempstead, TX
Leonard W. Groce built Liendo in 1853 as a cotton plantation home famed for its lavish antebellum hospitality — a way of life sustained by enslaved labor. In 1873 it passed to the philosopher Dr. Edmund Duncan Montgomery and his wife, the pioneering Texas sculptor Elisabet Ney, who made it their lifelong homestead and are buried on the grounds.
Prairie View A&M University
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Authorized by the Texas legislature in 1876 as the "Agricultural and Mechanical College for Colored Youth," this land-grant school opened in 1878 on a 1,434-acre former slave plantation, making it Texas's second state college. After an early closure it reorganized as a normal institute to train Black teachers, then grew steadily into a full college by the 1930s. Integrated in the 1960s, it took its present name, Prairie View A&M University, in 1973.
Wyatt Chapel Community Cemetery
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This burial ground began on Jared E. Kirby's Alta Vista Plantation, where, by oral tradition, the Kirby family set aside land for the graves of enslaved people from Alta Vista and from cousin Leonard Waller Croce's nearby Liendo Plantation. Its many unmarked graves are believed to date to the antebellum years, when the enslaved rarely had means for lasting headstones. After emancipation the community kept using the site — Kirby's widow deeded the plantation in 1876 for what became Prairie View A&M University — and it took the name of the nearby Wyatt Chapel, holding the graves of former slaves, their descendants, and veterans of both World Wars.
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