Weimar Railroad Depot
Weimar, Colorado County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Weimar was founded in 1873 when T. W. Peirce, president of the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railroad, built a depot here on property of D. W. Jackson (1829-1904). Peirce and Jackson shared the profits from sale of town lots. Before the coming of the railroad, transportation had posed a major problem for this area. Named for a German town that Peirce admired, Weimar quickly became a leading trade center. The first depot was replaced in 1925 by the present structure. In 1972 the Southern Pacific Railroad donated the building for use as the Weimar Public Library.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Weimar owes its very existence to the railroad: in 1873 rail magnate T. W. Peirce built a depot on D. W. Jackson's land and the two men split the profits from selling town lots. Peirce named the new town for a German city he admired, and with transportation finally solving the region's isolation, Weimar grew quickly into a trade center. The first depot gave way to the present structure in 1925, and in 1972 the Southern Pacific donated it to serve as the town's public library.
Why it matters
The story captures how railroads literally created towns across nineteenth-century Texas, and how a working depot could be reborn as a civic anchor generations later.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · T. W. Peirce
- · D. W. Jackson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Town of Weimar
Weimar, TX
On land that was once part of Texas's first Anglo-American colony, Weimar grew into a townsite in 1873 when the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio rail line arrived and D. W. Jackson donated half the land. Named for Weimar, Germany, the town incorporated in 1875 and by 1887 boasted a booming cotton economy, many stores, two newspapers, and an opera house that was among the first between Houston and San Antonio.
Bedstead Truss Bridge (Mulberry Creek Bridge)
Schulenburg, TX
Built in 1888 by the King Iron Bridge Company of Cleveland with a Kansas subcontractor, this sixty-foot iron span carried the Old Praha Road across Mulberry Creek and opened easy access to the growing town of Schulenburg. A pin-connected, box-chord modified Pratt low truss — the "bedstead" type — it cost just $1,422 to erect and served a major travel route into the early twentieth century. Few bridges of its distinctive style still stand.
Site of Railway Hospital
Columbus, TX
As railroads spread across Texas in the 1870s and 1880s, the companies took on the medical care of their far-flung crews. Dr. Robert Henry Harrison, trained in Cincinnati and Alabama, settled in Columbus as the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio line was building west, and served as medical director for the Southern Pacific's Atlantic Division. In 1880 he built a hospital for railway employees on this site, staffed by several physicians, until fire destroyed it around 1886 and it was never rebuilt.
Site of Svrcek Garage
Fayetteville, TX
Frank Svrcek's 1890s building on the Fayetteville square found its calling in the automobile age, housing Walter Meinen's Chevrolet dealership in the 1920s and later a garage where customers drove in the tin doors and out the back. After World War II, Willie Svrcek returned home to reopen the family building as Svrcek Garage, adding fuel pumps and a concrete floor, and even carving out space for an appliance shop. It served as a feed store before being razed in 2012.