Search Markers

Baytown, TX

Set among eight bays on the Gulf Coast, the land that became Baytown was home to the Attakapa, Akokisa, Bidai, and Karankawa peoples before Anglo pioneers gathered near Lynch's Ferry in 1822. Rice farms and clay brickyards built up the area through the 1800s, and the discovery of the Goose Creek Oilfield in 1903 — remembered as one of the nation's first offshore drilling ventures — triggered an oil boom that fused the towns of Goose Creek, Pelly, and Bay Town into a single city at consolidation in 1948.

Beaumont, TX

Beaumont was laid out in 1835 on a site known as Tevis's Bluff by Henry Millard, who named the new town in honor of his wife, Mary Dewleigh Borlace Warren Beaumont. Founded on the eve of the Texas Revolution, the town was incorporated in 1838 during the days of the Republic of Texas. It would later grow into a major Gulf Coast city.

Big Lake, TX

Big Lake took its name from a rain-fed depression that was once the only fresh water between the Concho River and Fort Stockton — a campsite for Native peoples, traders, and cattle drivers before it became the largest dry lake in Texas. The Orient Land Company platted the town along the railroad, and it grew from a stockpen and grocery in 1911 to the seat of Reagan County by 1925. Oil and gas later made it a regional energy center.

Blooming Grove, TX

Blooming Grove began as Gradyville in the 1860s, a village named for the Grady brothers who ran the general store that also held the post office. When the Cotton Belt Railroad arrived in 1888, the whole settlement shifted a mile northeast to the tracks, took the name of its 1871 postal station, and incorporated in 1890. A rural cotton-and-cattle town, it grew around its churches, its 1888 Masonic lodge, its schools begun in 1869, and its newspaper.

Bowie, TX

Bowie owes its existence to the railroad. In the 1870s the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad bought land here, and as crews laid track from Decatur a canvas settlement dubbed "Tent City" sprang up alongside the rails. When the line was finished, permanent buildings followed, and the town — named for Texas hero James Bowie — incorporated in 1883 as a market and financial hub for the farmers and ranchers between Fort Worth and Wichita Falls, growing to become the largest city in Montague County.

Brenham, TX

Founded in 1844 while Texas was still an independent republic, this town honors Dr. Richard Fox Brenham, a surgeon in the army of the Republic of Texas. Brenham joined the ill-fated Mier Expedition against Mexico and was killed in the fighting at Salado in February 1843, one year before the town took his name. His story ties the community's origins to the turbulent, blood-marked border between the young republic and Mexico.

Brownfield, TX

Brownfield began in 1903 as a promoter's gamble on the open plains of Terry County, laid out by developers W. G. Hardin and A. F. Small—famously using only a hundred feet of wire to measure a townsite out of raw pasture. To draw settlers they offered a free lot to every voter in the county, and a store, hotel, and school quickly followed. In 1904 the fledgling town narrowly beat neighboring Gomez for the county seat, securing its future.

Brownwood, TX

Settled in 1857 and given a post office the next year, Brownwood grew from a frontier townsite donated by Greenleaf Fisk into a Central Texas hub for cotton, farming, and trade. The Santa Fe Railroad arrived in 1885 and the Frisco in 1890, and by 1889 two colleges — Daniel Baker and Howard Payne — called it home. During World War II the huge Camp Bowie military post operated here from 1940 to 1946.

Caldwell, TX

Laid out in 1840 by surveyor George B. Erath on the Old San Antonio Road, Caldwell was named for Mathew 'Old Paint' Caldwell, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. The site had already drawn San Jacinto veteran Lewis L. Chiles, who ran a nearby trading post. When Burleson County formed in 1846 the town became its permanent seat, and rail lines in 1890 and 1912 made it a major agricultural shipping center.

Caldwell, TX

Caldwell was founded in 1840 by Lewis L. Chiles, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto, and named for Mathew 'Old Paint' Caldwell, an Indian fighter and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. It served as county seat of Milam County in 1845 and has been the seat of Burleson County since 1846. The town is home to the Burleson County Fair.

Canyon, TX

Surveyed on Christmas Day 1887 by L. G. Conner and named for nearby Palo Duro Canyon, Canyon rose against the Panhandle's snow, sandstorms, and grasshopper plagues. Early settlers strung the first telephone line on barbed-wire fence posts, and the arrival of the Santa Fe Railroad in 1898 made the town a cattle-shipping powerhouse that claimed some of the largest shipments in the world. In 1910 West Texas State University opened here, and town and school have grown side by side ever since.

Cedar Hill, TX

Settlers drawn to a high prairie hilltop founded Cedar Hill in the late 1840s, when this was still the frontier edge of a young Texas. Its early economy served the surrounding farms until a disastrous tornado in 1856 checked its growth, and the arrival of the railroad in 1882 revived it. In the late twentieth century the old farm town gave way to suburban Dallas.

Clarksville, TX

Clarksville was incorporated on December 29, 1837, during the days of the Republic of Texas, and named in honor of James Clark, who had settled nearby in 1834. It grew into one of the earliest established towns of Northeast Texas.

Cleveland, TX

Cleveland owes its start to 1878, when attorney and politician Charles Lander Cleveland deeded land to the Houston East and West Texas Railroad on the condition that a depot rise and a town bearing his name take root. Within a year the settlement had a sawmill, boarding houses, and homes, and its economy leaned on timber and the railroad for decades. The city was formally incorporated in 1935.

Columbus, TX

Around Christmas 1821, the Kuykendall brothers and Daniel Gilleland settled at an old Indian campground on the Mexico-to-Sabine trail, at a spot Stephen F. Austin had already marked as promising. Austin and the Baron de Bastrop surveyed the land in 1823, making this the oldest surveyed and platted Anglo-American town in Texas, home to many of Austin's "Old 300" colonists. Burned by the retreating Texas Army in 1836 to deny it to Santa Anna, the town rose again after the victory at San Jacinto and was replatted in 1837.

Crandall, TX

Named for Methodist minister C.F. Crandall, who arrived from Indiana in 1877 and bought 1,800 acres, the town took off when the Texas Trunk Line Railroad built east from Dallas in 1880. Crandall gave a bonus for rail service and became the first postmaster; churches, schools, stores, and banks soon followed as the town grew into an agricultural center.

Dallas, TX

Dallas began in 1841 as a single cabin on the Trinity River, where pioneer John Neely Bryan hoped river navigation would build a city. Instead it was the railroads — the Houston and Texas Central in 1872 and the Texas and Pacific the next year — that turned the young county seat into a commercial powerhouse. By 1890 Dallas was the state's most populous city, its fortunes riding on cotton, wheat, banking, and later East Texas oil, and in 1936 it hosted the Texas Centennial Exposition.

Del Rio, TX

When Val Verde County was carved out of the arid borderlands of far West Texas in 1885, the dusty settlement of Del Rio was chosen as its seat of government. Yet formal city government came slowly: residents first voted to incorporate in 1905, electing James McLymont as their first mayor, then apparently dissolved and reincorporated in 1911 under a commission form. A home-rule charter in 1918 and a shift to a council-manager system in 1967 trace the community's steady maturation from frontier waystation to established border city.

Dumas, TX

In 1891 Louis Dumas and J.R. Wheat organized a townsite company on the high, dry plains of the Texas Panhandle and named the new community for Dumas himself. A post office arrived that year, county-seat status the next, and a bank by 1908—yet the arid land drew few settlers and the town stayed small. Everything changed when oil was discovered in 1927, transforming Dumas's fortunes almost overnight.

Dallas, TX

East Dallas began as a farming settlement before the Civil War, its early leaders including farmer Jefferson Peak, rancher-banker W.H. Gaston, and Swiss-born brothers-in-law Henry Boll and Jacob Nussbaumer. The railroads of the 1870s swelled its population, and the community incorporated as its own city in 1882, building a water system, roads, and an independent school district under mayor George Crutcher. Though annexed by Dallas in 1889 after just seven years, East Dallas accomplished much in its brief independent life.

Elgin, TX

Elgin took shape in 1872 after the Houston & Texas Central Railroad crossed the area, and was named for the line's land commissioner, Robert M. Elgin. From 1882, when Thomas O'Connor began making hand-molded, sun-dried brick, the town became famous for its brick and tile. Settlers of six ethnic backgrounds gave the community a lasting cultural richness reflected in its homes, churches, and schools.

Ferris, TX

Ferris grew from an 1851 cluster of land-grant pioneers into a chartered town when the Andrews family deeded a 100-acre townsite to the Houston & Texas Central Railway in 1874, naming it for Judge J.W. Ferris. The railroad brought a post office, a cotton gin, and a newspaper, and by 1895 the community had found its lasting identity as a brick-making center. The short-lived Ferris Institute reflected the town's early reach for education.

George West, TX

George West was quite literally willed into being by the rancher whose name it carries. In 1913, George Washington West secured a railroad route through Live Oak County and donated municipal buildings and lots to seed a new town along the line. Within six years it had wrested away the county seat, and it grew into a busy market and shipping point for the region's cattle and cotton.

Giddings, TX

Giddings grew up around the railroad: when the Houston & Texas Central line reached this spot in 1871, a shipping point took root and took the name of Jabez D. Giddings, a stockholder and one of four Pennsylvania-born brothers who were Texas transportation pioneers. Two more railroads followed by 1913, and the town became the seat of Lee County with a diversified economy. Its history is the classic story of a Central Texas town whose fortunes rode the rails.

Grapeland, TX

Settled around 1850 and founded in 1872 by investors in the International & Great Northern Railway, Grapeland took its name from the wild grapevines that tangled the East Texas woods. A log schoolhouse doubled as its first church, and after an early business district burned in 1913 it was rebuilt in brick, with incorporation following in 1924. Oil and gas came in 1936, adding to an economy already grounded in peanuts, cotton, ranching, and truck crops.

Harlingen, TX

Platted in 1904 and incorporated in 1910, Harlingen was named for a Dutch town by founder Lon C. Hill, a railroad and business promoter who saw the Rio Grande Valley's future in irrigated farmland. The town organized the Valley's first irrigation and navigation districts and grew into a hub of finance, wholesale trade, and medical care. It became home to state hospitals, the Marine Military Academy, and museums of regional and aviation history.

Hearne, TX

Hearne sits on land first granted in 1830 to Francisco Ruiz, commander of the Mexican outpost Fort Tenoxtitlan on the Brazos frontier. An early tavern, stage stand, and post office served the region before Southern planters like Ebenezer and Horatio Hearne arrived in 1852 to work thousands of acres. When the Houston & Texas Central Railroad reached the site in 1868, Mrs. Christopher Columbus Hearne fulfilled her late husband's pledge by donating 700 acres, and the town platted in 1870 took the family's name.

Hillsboro, TX

Carved from Navarro County in 1853, Hill County took its name from Dr. George Washington Hill, a Republic of Texas Secretary of War. Its seat, Hillsboro, rose on donated land and grew rich on cotton, exploding after the Missouri, Kansas & Texas and other railroads arrived in the early 1880s—a boom preserved today in its Queen Anne homes and the grand 1890 courthouse. The town produced a remarkable roster of Texas leaders, including Lt. Governor Bob Bullock.

Hitchcock, TX

Once Karankawa country and later open cattle range, this stretch of Galveston County gained a town when the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway pushed through in the 1870s and named the station for civic leader Lent Munson Hitchcock. Truck farmers turned it into a fruit-and-vegetable center with stores, churches, and a school by the 1890s, until farming declined and men found work in nearby Texas City. World War II brought the biggest change of all: Camp Wallace trained anti-aircraft crews here, and a blimp base flew submarine patrols over the Gulf from 1941 to 1945.

Humble, TX

Humble began as a crossroads community named for settler Pleasant Smith Humble, who kept store, hewed railroad ties, and served as justice of the peace before 1889. Everything changed on January 7, 1905, when C.E. Barrett's No. 2 Beaty Well gushed 8,500 barrels a day, opening a boom that swelled the village of 700 into a town of 20,000 almost overnight. Operators here—including future Texas governor Ross S. Sterling—founded an oil company in 1911 that carried the town's name into world commerce.

Irving, TX

Farming communities dotted this part of Dallas County before the Civil War, but the town of Irving was born of the railroad. Around 1902, two members of a Rock Island survey party — chief J.O. Schulze and surveyor Otis Brown — bought 80 acres, platted a townsite, and sold lots at a barbecue auction in December 1903. Brown became the town's first mayor after its 1914 incorporation, and Irving later boomed with the arrival of the DFW Airport, Texas Stadium, and the Las Colinas business park.

Junction, TX

Platted in 1876 as "Denman" in the year Kimble County was organized, this town was soon renamed by its voters to reflect its site at the junction of the North and South Llano rivers. Steady growth brought 300 residents, a courthouse, jail, school, churches, and stores by 1882. Incorporated in 1927, Junction added water and sewer systems, a municipal hall, and even a swimming pool as it matured into the twentieth century.

Killeen, TX

Killeen was born in 1882 as a switching station at the midpoint of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad's line from Temple to Lampasas, taking its name from an Irish-born rail official, Frank P. Killeen. Settlers from older communities like Sugar Loaf and Palo Alto gathered around the depot, and by 1883 the town had a school, gristmills, and a cotton gin. Long an agricultural center, Killeen was transformed in 1942 by the arrival of Camp Hood — now Fort Hood — into one of the fastest-growing towns in Texas.

Krum, TX

Krum grew from an 1876 pioneer settlement known as the Jackson community into a proper town in 1886, when the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway bought land and named the station for railroad official Charles K. Krum. Stores, churches, and a post office quickly followed, but it was the region's rich soil that made Krum famous, drawing renown as one of the largest inland grain markets of the early 1900s. Local wheat even won the grand prize for 'Rainbow Flour' at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.

Levelland, TX

Surveyed and platted in 1912 as "Hockley City" by cereal magnate C. W. Post, this barren High Plains townsite won the race for county seat in 1921 — the first meeting of county officers reportedly held inside a Cadillac. Early Levelland made do with a 16-by-32-foot temporary courthouse, a well, and a community black-eyed pea patch, before the railroad arrived in 1925 and oil was discovered nearby in 1937.

Levelland, TX

The City of Levelland Cemetery was established about 1924, in the early years of this Hockley County town on the South Plains of West Texas. It has served the community's families ever since and was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2010.

Lubbock, TX

In March 1892 Lubbock residents secured five acres of pasture for a cemetery, holding their first burial that same month for a cowboy who died of pneumonia. For much of the 20th century the grounds were divided into separate burial areas segregated by race, faith, and economic standing, with groups like Los Socios del Sementerio providing for migrant workers before integration came in the late 1960s. Now holding more than 60,000 graves—among them rock-and-roll pioneer Buddy Holly—it is one of Texas's largest cemeteries.

Lufkin, TX

Founded in 1882 and named for E. P. Lufkin, the railroad surveyor whose crew charted the line through town, this East Texas settlement quickly became a booming sawmill community amid the Piney Woods. It won the county seat of Angelina County in 1892 and grew into a regional hub of manufacturing and commerce. Its mills and foundries turned out paper, wood products, oilfield pumps, trailers, and castings.

Luling, TX

Luling sprang up in 1874 where the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railroad crossed a main wagon road, drawing in whole communities and a relocated post office and chartering as a city that September. As the railroad's terminus into 1875 it boomed with shipping, drifters, and a reputation as a tough town before churches and schools settled it down. A 1922 oil strike opened a new chapter, with scores of producing wells drilled inside the city limits.

Manor, TX

This town grew from land first settled by James Manor, who came to Texas with Sam Houston in 1832 and returned with his family to a country still subject to Indian raids into the 1850s. Alongside a roll call of pioneer families, the settlement soon boasted a boys' school, a Methodist church, and the celebrated Parsons Female Academy, whose students included a future lieutenant governor and a dean of the University of Texas law school. When Manor donated right-of-way for the Houston & Texas Central Railroad in 1871, the town platted and named for him the next year was assured its future.

Matagorda County, TX

Planned in the 1820s and founded in 1829 by proprietors including Stephen F. Austin, Matagorda rose near the mouth of the Colorado River to become the third-largest town in Texas by 1834. It served as county seat and an early hub of schools, churches and printing presses in the Republic era. Gulf storms in 1854 and 1875 battered the coastal town, checking the growth of what had been a leading Texas port.

Mesquite, TX

Mesquite began in May 1873 when Texas & Pacific engineer A.R. Alcott platted a depot town along the new rail line, and a post office followed the next year. Businesses first faced Front Street, then turned toward Main Street to form a town square as the community grew; voters incorporated in 1887 and re-incorporated with new boundaries in 1903. What started as an agrarian railroad stop expanded rapidly in the later twentieth century as a Dallas suburb, anchored by a school district dating to 1901.

Jefferson Parish, LA

In the summer of 1927, a twelve-square-mile stretch of Jefferson Parish incorporated first as a village and then, weeks later, as a city, with Charles P. Aicklen serving as mayor and bringing natural gas service the following year. But the young municipality moved to outlaw the gambling that flourished nearby, and casino interests fought back in court. By November 1928 the Louisiana Supreme Court had voided the incorporation entirely.

Nederland, TX

Nederland was founded in 1897 by Dutch immigrants who took its name from their homeland, the Netherlands, then burdened by crowded land and worn-out soil. When the Port Arthur Land Company advertised the abundance of America, families crossed the ocean to this corner of Southeast Texas, where some were driven home by the swamps and hard climate. Those who stayed built an economy of farming and ranching that later gave way to rice-growing and the industries of the Gulf Coast.

Pasadena, TX

The ground beneath modern Pasadena passed from Native lands to pioneer ranches to a space-age industrial city, but its most dramatic hour came in 1836, when the armies of Sam Houston and Santa Anna crossed here on the way to San Jacinto. Scout Erastus Deaf Smith destroyed a bridge on the Vince ranch to cut off the Mexican army's retreat, and after the battle a fleeing Santa Anna was captured about a mile from this spot. Later known for its strawberry fields and Land of Flowers boosterism, the town founded in 1895 grew into a hub of oil and chemical industry.

Pharr, TX

The land around Pharr passed from the nomadic Coahuiltecans to Spanish colonization in the late 1700s, becoming Texas soil when the Rio Grande was fixed as the boundary in 1848. In 1909 the Pharr Townsite Company platted the town, whose founders donated church lots and organized irrigation that shifted the economy from ranching to citrus and produce farming. Served by the railroad and two major highways, Pharr incorporated in 1916 and grew into the self-styled "Hub City of the Valley."

Pilot Point, TX

In the late 1840s, pioneers drawn by rich soil, water, and game settled at the edge of Texas's Cross Timbers, near a high stand of timber that guided travelers and gave the town its name. Platted in 1854 and served by an early immigrant trail and the Butterfield stage route, Pilot Point grew into a market hub for farmers and stock raisers, gaining a seminary, newspaper, bank, grist mill, and cotton gin. The arrival of two railroads in the 1880s cemented its place as a regional trade center.

Ralls, TX

Ralls owes its existence to John R. Ralls, a Georgia-born settler who moved West in the 1880s and gave land for a townsite, free lots for its churches, acreage for its school, and even offered 2,000 acres to lure Texas Technological College. After settling litigation with a rival townsite company, he secured a railroad station in 1916, the guarantee of the town's survival. The city was incorporated in 1922, just after its founder's death.

Richmond, TX

Settled in 1822 by members of Stephen F. Austin's colony as 'Fort Settlement,' Richmond was formally laid out in 1837 and named for Richmond, Virginia, becoming county seat in 1838. Among its residents were Jane Long, the 'Mother of Texas,' and scout Erastus 'Deaf' Smith, both buried nearby, and the arrival of Texas's first railroad in 1855 brought new prosperity. Later the town saw saloon-smasher Carry Nation run a hotel and the violent 1889 Jaybird-Woodpecker feud climax in a shootout on Courthouse Square.

Rockdale, TX

Rockdale sprang up in 1874 as a stop on the new International & Great Northern Railroad, and it grew fast—soon boasting churches, schools, cotton gins, grist mills, an opera house, a bank, and a newspaper. The city organized formally in 1875, and in 1895 work began on a city hall to the design of Austin architect A. O. Watson. That building housed city offices, social gatherings, and the volunteer fire department for eighty years, and still stands as a reminder of the town's railroad-era rise.

Rogers, TX

Founded in 1881 and named for Santa Fe Railroad official John D. Rogers, this Bell County town rode the great Central Texas cotton boom. Within a few years it had a post office and stores, and at its peak boasted schools, churches, a newspaper, three banks, and six cotton gins. Among its native sons were four Bell County sheriffs, including the county's first, William Reed.

Rowlett, TX

Rowlett began as Morris, the name of its 1880 post office, and took its present name in 1889—possibly for early surveyor Daniel Owen Rowlett—three years after the Greenville & Dallas (later MK&T) railroad arrived. By the early 1900s it had doctors, stores, churches, a depot, a bank, and a two-story school, and its citizens voted to incorporate in 1952. The completion of Lake Ray Hubbard in 1971 reshaped the town's borders as Dallas's suburban growth pushed outward.

Sabine Pass, TX

Settlers reached this pass at the mouth of the Sabine River in the early 1830s, and in 1839 Sam Houston helped charter the town of Sabine and promoted the sale of more than two thousand lots—before a land-title dispute stripped him and his partners of the claim. Renamed Sabine Pass in 1860, the port became the scene of a celebrated 1863 Civil War engagement in which a small Confederate force turned back a Union bid to seize the harbor and push into Texas. Later jetty work spurred inland ports, though hurricane damage eventually sent the town into decline.

Sherman, TX

Settled in 1846, Sherman took its name from General Sidney Sherman, who commanded the left wing of the Texas army at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto and later served in the Congress of the Republic of Texas. The town's real boom came with its 1873 incorporation, when rapid growth and prosperity transformed the prairie settlement into a thriving county seat.

Snyder, TX

Snyder began in 1878 as "Hide Town," a rough camp of tents and dugouts where buffalo hunters traded on Deep Creek, taking its lasting name from trader W.H. "Pete" Snyder. The railroad's arrival in 1908 knit it into the wider economy, but it was the 1948 discovery of the vast Canyon Reef oil field that transformed the quiet county seat into an overnight boom town, tripling its population in a single year.

Springtown, TX

In 1856 New Jersey native Captain Joseph Ward settled beside a creek fed by dozens of springs, and by 1859 had platted a town square around Littleton's Springs. Renamed Springtown in the mid-1870s for its bubbling waters, the town filled quickly with churches, general stores, blacksmiths, and cotton gins. Its schools grew so strong that Springtown was known as the 'educational capital of Northwest Texas' from 1884 to 1894, later prospering further from oil.

Sundown, TX

The town of Sundown rose on land that had been part of the sprawling C.C. Slaughter Ranch, and in 1931 the rancher's son Bob Slaughter donated ground for a community burial place. The first marked grave, that of Winnie Dell Hines Simmons, dates to 1933, and many who rest here were oil field workers drawn by the region's petroleum boom. Local garden club and volunteer firefighters planted the perimeter trees in 1962 as the grounds expanded.

Taylor, TX

When the International & Great Northern Railroad crossed Williamson County in 1876, it spawned a town called Taylorsville, named for railroad executive Moses Taylor, with lots sold that June and a post office opened in August. Sitting on a cattle trail, the town quickly became a major shipping point for cattle, then grew further after a second rail line arrived in 1882 and the community incorporated. Renamed simply Taylor in 1892, it added cotton to cattle and rails as pillars of a prosperous local economy.

Temple, TX

Founded in 1881 on the Santa Fe line and named for railroad official B. M. Temple, the town began with a barbecue-fueled town-lot sale and a rough early reputation — muddy streets, saloons, and the nickname "Tanglefoot." As a Santa Fe division point and junction with other lines, it grew quickly, established public schools by 1884, and later became a major medical center anchored by the Santa Fe, King's Daughters, Scott & White, and veterans' hospitals.

Tom Bean, TX

Wealthy Bonham landowner and surveyor Thomas Bean donated fifty acres for a branch railroad from Sherman to Commerce, and the town of Tom Bean sprang up in 1887, the year he died. Nearby Whitemound, bypassed by the rails, lost its post office and its settlers to the new town. By the early 1900s Tom Bean boomed with a grain company, drugstore, newspaper, saloon, dance hall, and movie theater—until cars and the decline of cotton drew business away to Denison and Sherman.