West
West, McLennan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
This community traces its origin to the establishment by entrepreneur Thomas M. West of a stagecoach stop, dry goods store and post office here in the late 1860s. Known as the Bold Springs Settlement, these commercial structures were built on a section of the "Dallas Road" leading to West's ranch property. Early Anglo-American settlers were soon drawn to the area by its abundance of good water and the availability of rich wooded prairie blacklands. In 1880 the Missouri, Kansas, & Texas (Katy) Railroad erected a depot at Bold Springs and in 1882 the name of the community was changed to West in honor of Thomas West. The coming of the railroad and the emergence of cotton production in the 1880s attracted many Czech and German immigrants to this area. By 1900 the town had become the economic and cultural center of the thriving farming region of north-eastern McLennan County. The community soon added its first newspaper, bank, volunteer fire department, and its first block of brick buildings. By 1910 West was a bustling town of about 2000 people. Since then the community has experienced slow but steady growth. Westfest, an annual event since 1976, celebrates the community's Czech heritage.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The town of West grew from a stagecoach stop, store, and post office that entrepreneur Thomas M. West established at the Bold Springs Settlement in the late 1860s. The arrival of the Katy Railroad in 1880 and the rise of cotton farming drew a wave of Czech and German immigrants, and by 1910 the community had swelled into a bustling town of some 2,000 people. Its Czech heritage still headlines the annual Westfest.
Why it matters
West embodies how the railroad and the cotton economy knit Central Texas together and made it a magnet for European immigrants whose culture endures generations later.
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Related people
- · Thomas M. West
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Groppe Building
West, TX
August Groppe, Sr., one of the first German settlers in the area, had this structure raised in 1892—the very year the town of West was incorporated. A prosperous cotton farmer and businessman, Groppe hired local brickmasons and used bricks made near West to build the first brick building in the town's business district. Over the following century the building housed a succession of enterprises, from dry goods store to grocery to drugstore.
The Crash at Crush
West, TX
In the fall of 1896 a railroad passenger agent named William Crush hit on a spectacular way to sell tickets: deliberately ram two steam locomotives together at full speed. More than 30,000 people crowded the temporary town of "Crush" to watch, but the boilers exploded on impact against the engineers' expectations, killing two spectators and injuring others. The stunt became one of the most infamous publicity disasters of the railroad age.
Ross
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When the railroad reached this spot in 1873, it bypassed the older settlement of White Rock, and residents simply picked up and moved to the new town growing along the tracks. They named it for Lawrence Sullivan "Sul" Ross — Texas Ranger, Confederate general, sheriff, governor, and later a respected college president. Rich farmland drew European immigrants and made Ross an early hub of agricultural trade.
Aquilla Creek Truss Bridge
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Aquilla Creek's crossing was notoriously impassable in wet weather, so in 1887 the county judge contracted for an iron span with a hundred-foot approach on each bank. The first firm failed to finish, and the Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Works of Leavenworth, Kansas, completed the truss bridge in 1892 for $3,000. Two sister iron bridges over the same creek fell in the 1950s, but strong local support saved this one even after a modern concrete bridge took over the traffic in 1998.