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Buffalo, Texas

Everything Buffalo is known for

2 songs mention this city

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Music in Buffalo

Songs About Buffalo

I’ve Been Everywhere...In Texas
Brian Burns
6%
"Buffalo"
When I See You Again
Jimmy LaFave
2%
"Buffalo gals and laughter times ten"

Artists From Buffalo

No artists from Buffalo in the database yet.

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Buffalo

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Buffalo.

Interstate 45 8 songs Trinity River 11 songs Kickapoo Creek 4 songs Neches River 2 songs

Musical Heritage

The Traffic Jam That Made a Band RoadyGoat

Buffalo, Texas, is named for the buffalo herds that once roamed here, but the word also named one of the great rock bands. In nineteen sixty six, Neil Young and a bass player named Bruce Palmer drove from Toronto to Los Angeles in an old Pontiac hearse, looking for a musician Young knew named Stephen Stills. They couldn't find him, and after about a week they gave up and headed north. On Sunset Boulevard, at rush hour, Stills and Richie Furay were stuck in traffic going the other way, and Furay spotted a black hearse with Ontario plates. They changed lanes, chased it down, pulled into a parking lot, and hugged. That was the band. For a name, they took it off a steamroller made by the Buffalo Springfield Roller Company, and five days after that traffic jam they played their first show.

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Pushwater Plays the Flood RoadyGoat

Jewett's own Pushwater is a family country band. Jesse Duke sings lead, his brother Eddie plays lead guitar, their father Jerry plays bass, and their cousin John Sunkes plays percussion and mandolin. In early June of two thousand sixteen, floodwater got into parts of Crosby and Baytown, east of Houston, including a honky tonk called Bob N Jeans, where the band had a show that Saturday. Jesse told Houston's ABC station they had already driven down from Jewett by the time they heard the bar had taken on water. He called the manager, she said it was flooded, and he told her they'd come take a look anyway. When they got there, people were dancing, shooting pool and sitting at the bar. Jesse's father, the band's bass player, is a pretty darn good electrician, and he checked that the breakers were the ground fault kind and that every plug sat four feet off the ground. So they played, and the crowd danced in ankle deep water to a band called, fittingly enough, Pushwater.

RoadyGoat → · 8.1 mi away

History of Buffalo

A Small Man, a Big Man, and the Hardins RoadyGoat

On the twenty fifth of March, eighteen eighty two, in the town of Jewett, about eight miles southwest of Buffalo, a big man named Hiram Miller attacked a small man named Robert Linson, without provocation, according to the court. People tried to pull them apart, but a man named Swan Hardin stopped them. Miller got Linson down, beat him, and kicked and spurred him in the head. When Linson got loose and Miller came at him again, Linson drew a pistol and fired, and then traded shots with another man, and the shooting spread along the street. Before it was over, Linson was dead. Miller was convicted of manslaughter and given two years, and in November of eighteen eighty three the appeals court threw out the conviction because of errors in the judge's instructions to the jury, and sent it back for a new trial.

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Who Invented the Buffalo Wing? RoadyGoat

Buffalo, Texas, shares a name with Buffalo, New York, and Buffalo, New York, gave us the chicken wing. Or did it? In nineteen eighty, the writer Calvin Trillin set out to write a short history of the Buffalo wing and found even that was hard. The Anchor Bar's version had two tellings. The father said a supplier sent wings instead of the backs and necks for spaghetti sauce, and his wife, Teressa, turned them into a bar snack. The son said it was late on a Friday in nineteen sixty four, and he asked his mother for something special to give the regulars at midnight. Both agreed on the dish: wings cut in two, deep fried, sauced hot, served with celery and blue cheese dressing. Then Trillin met a restaurant man named John Young, who told him, I am actually the creator of the wing, served in his own mambo sauce back in the mid nineteen sixties. The truth, Trillin found, depended on who you asked.

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Buffalo Bill's Royal Flush RoadyGoat

One more Buffalo, and this one had a Wild West show. In eighteen eighty seven, William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill, took his whole Wild West show to London for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, and the Queen herself asked for a private performance. She told Annie Oakley, You are a very, very clever little girl. Then, that June, the Prince of Wales brought four reigning European kings to a private show. The royals climbed aboard the old Deadwood stagecoach, with its regular driver at the reins, while mock raiders attacked. Afterward, the Prince asked Cody whether he'd ever played before four kings. According to a newspaper report that summer, Cody answered: I have, your royal highness, but I never held such a royal flush as this against four kings. And the Prince, it's said, had to explain poker to his guests.

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Braniff International Flight 542

1959

Bound for New York City’s Idlewild Airport with intermediate stops at Dallas Love Field and Washington National Airport, Braniff International Flight 542 departed Houston International Airport on Tuesday, September 29, 1959. At approximately 11:09 pm, the nearly-new Lockheed Electra aircraft was struck by a catastrophic failure of the left-wing structure a few miles east-southeast of Buffalo. 
 Perishing in the crash were 28 passengers, two Braniff employees and six crew members operating the flight. Sixteen passengers were Dallas residents. Pieces of the aircraft were found scattered for miles in the surrounding countryside, affecting the families of the victims and the citizens of the Buffalo area for years to come. 
 Prior to the crash, Braniff was regarded as having one of the best safety records in the airline industry. This was the nation’s first commercial accident with no survivors in 31 years. An initial cause of the crash was unknown, but six months later, a Northwest Airlines Electra aircraft crashed in Indiana under similar circumstances. An extensive analysis determined that an unbalanced outboard engine propeller due to a weakened nacelle structure caused wing oscillations. 
 When the cause was identified, Lockheed developed an immediate program to redesign and modify the Electra global fleet. Despite the tragic loss of life, many thousands were saved because of the redesign and development of the Electra series. Flight 542 was the worst airline disaster for Braniff and the worst in Texas until Braniff Flight 352 in May 1968. (2020)

Historical Marker → · 3.6 mi away

Buffalo, TX (Henderson County)

1846

Buffalo, the first county seat of Henderson County, was built on a high bluff on the Trinity River. During the Republic of Texas era, a group of hunters killed buffalo in what is now Navarro County and dragged and rafted them down to the site of Buffalo. John P. Moore was operating a ferry there by 1846. That year the legislature established Henderson County from the Nacogdoches district. That area became Henderson, Kaufman, Van Zandt, Rockwall, Wood, and most of Rains counties. In 1847 Henry Jeffries donated 188 acres of land for the town of Buffalo and paid John H. Reagan to survey the townsite. A store, the county clerk's office, and several homes were built by men lured there by prospects of a port thriving on river traffic. But in 1848 the legislature reduced the size of the county and ordered a survey to determine the new center. That proved to be several miles east of Buffalo between North and South Twin creeks, and the new site was named Centerville. Voters chose it as the new county seat, but reduction of the county to its present size in 1850 and relocation of the county seat to Athens, near a new geographical center, caused both Buffalo and Centerville to wither and die.

Tsha Handbook →

Gould, Colonel Robert Simonton

1850

(1826-1904) Born in North Carolina. Educated at University of Alabama. Came to Texas in 1850. Practiced law in Centerville. Served as the first district attorney, then as judge in the Old 13th Judicial District. Represented Leon County as member of Secession Convention, 1861. Afterward, as this county voted 534 to 82 in favor of secession, raised locally troops which as Co. B, became nucleus for 6th Texas Cavalry (or Gould's) Battalion, in the Confederate Army. First as major, then as colonel, Gould led battalion for 4 years in Louisiana and Texas. Saw duty in Red River campaign to prevent invasions of Texas, fighting in the 1864 repulses of Federals at Mansfield and Pleasant Hill. At Jenkins Ferry, Ark., Col. Gould had his horse killed under him. After the war he was reelected judge of the Old 13th District, but was removed in 1867 by military authorities in charge of reconstruction in Texas. Appointed assistant justice of Texas Supreme Court in 1874, he was afterwards elected, and served until Dec. 31, 1882 (being chief justice in 1880-1882). Was named, along with Governor O. M. Roberts, as one of two first professors of law at the University of Texas, holding tenure 1883-1899. Died in Austin.

Historical Marker →

Buffalo, TX (Leon County)

1872

Buffalo is on the Missouri Pacific tracks at the intersection of U.S. highways 79 and 75 and Interstate Highway 45, fourteen miles north of Centerville in northern Leon County. It was established in 1872 on the International-Great Northern Railroad and named for the herds of buffalo that had roamed the area. The last link of the railroad was completed four miles from the town in April or May 1872. Before the railroad arrived Buffalo residents had shipped cotton by river and driven livestock to market. The Buffalo post office was established in 1876. The community's first school was a two-story structure that later served as the community center-named the "Opera House"-and subsequently until the late 1940s as a hotel. Between 1890 and 1892 Buffalo's reported population grew from 200 to 500; during the 1890s the town had a general store, saloons, cotton gins, a milliner, druggists, a constable, the county commissioner, the notary, and churches established by the Baptists, the Methodists, and the Presbyterians. In 1913 the town was incorporated and had an area of four square miles. Buffalo lost its charter in 1917, but was later reincorporated. It reported a population of 650 in 1929, 470 in 1931, 850 in 1939, and 737 in 1941 and 1950. In 1927 the Concord Common School District consolidated with the Buffalo school district. Seven other districts were consolidated with Buffalo between 1929 and 1970. In 1938 the Buffalo schools had a combined enrollment of 510 students, 342 White and 168 Black. Railroad passenger service to the community was discontinued in 1970. In the 1990s Buffalo had an annual watermelon festival and a regular Labor Day-weekend festival known as the Buffalo Stampede. In 1990 Buffalo reported a population of 1,555. The population had grown to 1,804 by 2000.

Tsha Handbook →

Hattie Barnes Adkisson

1920

Hattie Barnes was born January 2, 1886, in Jewett. Her family moved to San Marcos around 1908 where Hattie graduated from the Coronal Institute. Hattie married James Thedford Adkisson on May 12, 1910. They returned to Jewett and had two sons. Hattie was active in the community and Presbyterian Church. Texas women were granted the right to vote on June 28, 1919. In 1920, Jewett citizens, disenchanted with city officials, elected Hattie and five other women as mayor and aldermen. Jewett became one of the earliest female-governed towns in the nation. During Mayor Adkisson's two terms, many improvements were implemented. Hattie was ultimately appointed to serve on state and federal civic work committees. (2016)

Historical Marker → · 7.9 mi away

Alexander, Alger [Texas]

1927

Blues singer Alger "Texas" Alexander was born in Jewett, Texas, on September 12, 1900, the son of Sam "Ernie" Alexander and Jennie Brooks. He was raised by his grandmother, Sally Beavers, in Richards. He spent most of his life working as a railroad section hand or on farms in East Texas. He was a short, stocky man who sang with a deep, booming voice. He often shouted out his lyrics in the tradition of field slaves, although this sometimes made his words difficult to understand. He always carried a guitar with him but could not play it. When he sang in migrant work camps, in honkytonks, or on the streets, he sought out a guitar player to accompany him. His accompanists included Blind Lemon Jefferson , John T. (Funny Papa) Smith , George (Little Hat) Jones , and Alexander's cousin Lightnin' Hopkins . Pianist Sammy Price discovered Alexander in the early 1920s and arranged a recording session for him. Alexander recorded extensively after that, collaborating with other blues legends, including Lonnie Johnson, the Mississippi Sheiks, Lightnin' Hopkins, and Little Hat Jones. Between 1927 and 1934 he recorded more than sixty sides on the OKeh and Vocalion labels. His extensive recording helped him become one of the most popular blues singers of that era. He also served at least two prison terms, including a stint in Paris, Texas, for allegedly killing his wife. Alexander's songs reflected his prison and work experiences. After his release from jail in the mid-1940s he and Hopkins performed for tips on Houston street corners and buses. After moving back to Richards in 1951 he spent the last years of his life in poor health. He died of syphilis on April 16, 1954, in Richards, and is buried in Longstreet Cemetery in Grimes County.

Tsha Handbook → · 8.1 mi away

Everything Near Buffalo

228 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

  • Buffalo, TX (Henderson County) · Tsha Handbook

    Buffalo, the first county seat of Henderson County, was built on a high bluff on the Trinity River. During the Republic of Texas era, a group of hunters killed buffalo in what is now Navarro County and dragged and…

  • Buffalo, TX (Leon County) · Tsha Handbook

    Buffalo is on the Missouri Pacific tracks at the intersection of U.S. highways 79 and 75 and Interstate Highway 45, fourteen miles north of Centerville in northern Leon County. It was established in 1872 on the…

  • A Small Man, a Big Man, and the Hardins · 0.1 mi

    On the twenty fifth of March, eighteen eighty two, in the town of Jewett, about eight miles southwest of Buffalo, a big man named Hiram Miller attacked a small man named Robert Linson, without provocation, according to…

  • The Lady Bison's Championship · 0.1 mi

    In two thousand two, the Buffalo girls' basketball team won the Class Two A state championship, beating Abernathy forty eight to forty three. For a small town on Interstate forty five, it's the kind of night people…

  • The Traffic Jam That Made a Band · 0.1 mi

    Buffalo, Texas, is named for the buffalo herds that once roamed here, but the word also named one of the great rock bands. In nineteen sixty six, Neil Young and a bass player named Bruce Palmer drove from Toronto to Los…

  • Who Invented the Buffalo Wing? · 0.1 mi

    Buffalo, Texas, shares a name with Buffalo, New York, and Buffalo, New York, gave us the chicken wing. Or did it? In nineteen eighty, the writer Calvin Trillin set out to write a short history of the Buffalo wing and…

  • Buffalo Bill's Royal Flush · 0.1 mi

    One more Buffalo, and this one had a Wild West show. In eighteen eighty seven, William F. Cody, Buffalo Bill, took his whole Wild West show to London for Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee, and the Queen herself asked for…

  • The Town Named for a Dog · 0.1 mi

    East of Buffalo is the little community of Flo, and it went through more names than most towns do: Kidd's Mill, Wheelock, Bethlehem, Oneta, New Hope, Odens, Oden and Midway, among others. In eighteen ninety one it got…

  • A Sentence Made of One Word · 0.1 mi

    Here's a word game for a town called Buffalo. In English, buffalo is three words at once: the animal, the city in New York, and a verb meaning to bully or confuse. That means you can build a real sentence using nothing…

  • The Thing in the Trinity Bottom · 0.1 mi

    Here's one for the folklore file. In a report sent to a Bigfoot research group in nineteen ninety eight, someone passed along a story from the Leon County Trinity River bottoms back in the fall of nineteen thirty: quail…

  • The Voice of Slayer Runs Cattle Outside Buffalo · 0.3 mi

    It is one of the unlikeliest facts in Leon County: the frontman of Slayer, one of the loudest and most influential thrash-metal bands ever, lives the quiet life of a Texas rancher right here. Tom Araya, the band's…

  • The First Mayor and the Charter That Slipped Away · 0.3 mi

    Buffalo's name comes from the animal, not a founding family, so the town has no single namesake clan to point to, but its civic founders left their names in the record. When residents finally organized a municipal…

Show all 200 nearby places
  • First Baptist Church of Buffalo · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Buffalo, a town that got its start with the railroad back in 1877. That same year, fifteen people gathered at the Buffalo Academy to start a Baptist congregation. It joined the Trinity River…

  • Forging the Future From Scrap · 0.5 mi

    The Nucor steel mill about fourteen miles west of town, over at Jewett, isn’t just a factory; it’s a marvel of materials science and engineering. It’s what’s known as a 'mini-mill,' and its key technology is the…

  • The Interstate Lifeline · 0.5 mi

    The railroad may have built Buffalo — the International-Great Northern came through in 1872 — but the interstate is what carries it now. As you cruise along I-45, you're on the town's modern lifeline. When this…

  • Buffalo, TX · 0.5 mi

    Folks around here know Buffalo as a friendly place, a real Texas small town. Drive in and you’ll see those gently rolling hills, covered in post oaks and blackjack oaks, just like they were back in 1872 when the town…

  • From Millions To Three Hundred · 0.6 mi

    You're passing through Buffalo, Texas, named for the bison, and this is the part of that animal's story that turns somber, then hopeful. It reaches far beyond this little Leon County town. Before the eighteen hundreds,…

  • It Was Never A Buffalo · 0.6 mi

    Standing here in Buffalo, Texas, the name begs an obvious question, so let's actually talk about the word buffalo for a minute, because there's a mix-up baked right into it. Strictly speaking, the animals that gave this…

  • Built For The Open Country · 0.6 mi

    You're rolling through Buffalo, Texas, a town named straight for the animal, so here's what the bison actually is. It is the largest land mammal in North America. A full-grown bull can top two thousand pounds and stand…

  • The Other Buffalo's Mystery · 0.6 mi

    Right here in Buffalo, Texas, the name's origin is settled, but let me give a nod to the other Buffalo, the big one up on Lake Erie, because it makes a myth-versus-fact twist. People assume both towns were named the…

  • The Herds That Named a Town · 0.6 mi

    Here's a town that wears its history right in its name, and it's exactly what you'd guess. Buffalo, Texas, up here in northern Leon County, was laid out in eighteen seventy-one and eighteen seventy-two as the…

  • One Word, A Whole Country · 0.6 mi

    So think about how much a single, slightly wrong word can carry. Pull on the name Buffalo, Texas, and the whole thread unspools. It leads to an animal that isn't really a buffalo at all, but a bison, misnamed by…

  • When The Rails Made The Town · 0.6 mi

    Up in northern Leon County, the town we now call Buffalo, Texas, moved its goods the slow way before the rails arrived. Residents shipped cotton down the rivers and drove their livestock overland to market, which is a…

  • Post Oak Savannah Crossroads · 0.6 mi

    Look at where you actually are for a second. Buffalo sits at a crossroads, where United States highways seventy-nine and seventy-five meet Interstate forty-five, about fourteen miles north of Centerville in northern…

  • The Town the Railroad Drew on Paper Before the Buffalo Were Gone · 0.7 mi

    This stretch of Leon County didn't grow up organically around a courthouse or a ford. It was platted on paper. In 1871 and 1872 surveyors laid out a thirty-block townsite here specifically to meet the oncoming…

  • The Stampede That Closes Out Every Summer · 0.7 mi

    If you roll through Buffalo around Labor Day, you may catch the town at its loudest: the Buffalo Stampede. It's the community's signature celebration, a tradition that goes back at least to the 1990s, when Buffalo also…

  • Cotton, Cattle, and the Last Passenger Train · 0.8 mi

    For its first century Buffalo lived and died by the rails it was built for. When the depot opened, the town finally had a fast way to move the two things this part of Leon County produced: cotton and cattle. By the…

  • A Country High School Built Like a College Campus · 1.0 mi

    The Buffalo Bison play out of a high school with a quirk you won't find in many towns this size. When the current Buffalo High School building opened in 2010 at 1724 North Buffalo Avenue, its designers laid out the…

  • Gould, Colonel Robert Simonton · 1.6 mi · Historical Marker

    (1826-1904) Born in North Carolina. Educated at University of Alabama. Came to Texas in 1850. Practiced law in Centerville. Served as the first district attorney, then as judge in the Old 13th Judicial District.…

  • The Night a Brand-New Airliner Fell Out of the Sky Over Buffalo · 2.8 mi

    On the night of September 29, 1959, people around Buffalo heard an explosion overhead and then saw a fireball drop out of the dark. Braniff International Flight 542, a Lockheed L-188 Electra turboprop bound from Houston…

  • The Buffalo Crash That Forced Engineers to Rethink the Whole Airplane · 2.8 mi

    What fell on the White farm here turned into one of aviation's great engineering detective stories. For six months after Braniff 542 broke up over Buffalo, Civil Aeronautics Board investigators knew the left wing had…

  • Braniff International Flight 542 · 3.6 mi · Historical Marker

    Bound for New York City’s Idlewild Airport with intermediate stops at Dallas Love Field and Washington National Airport, Braniff International Flight 542 departed Houston International Airport on Tuesday,…

  • Brushy Cemetery · 6.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through eastern Leon County, near where the Yarborough family settled in the 1850s after moving from Alabama. Five Yarborough sons served the Confederacy in the Civil War. Two of them, Wade and William,…

  • Harrison Chapel · 7.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Dew, and right here is Harrison Chapel, a cornerstone of this community since the 1850s. Organized with just twelve members, it grew thanks to land donated by pioneer George Harrison and hosted…

  • Smith, Manaen Turnbull · 7.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site where Manaen T. Smith lived out his days in Jewett. Born in Georgia in 1802, he came to Texas way back in 1822. He fought in the Texas Army, even participating in the Siege of Bexar in…

  • Hattie Barnes Adkisson · 7.9 mi · Historical Marker

    Hattie Barnes was born January 2, 1886, in Jewett. Her family moved to San Marcos around 1908 where Hattie graduated from the Coronal Institute. Hattie married James Thedford Adkisson on May 12, 1910. They returned to…

  • The Iron Claw Was Born in Jewett · 8.1 mi

    On August 16, 1929, Jack Barton Adkisson was born right here in Jewett, the man the wrestling world would come to know as Fritz Von Erich. He threw discus and played football at SMU, got a brief look from the NFL's…

  • Pushwater Plays the Flood · 8.1 mi

    Jewett's own Pushwater is a family country band. Jesse Duke sings lead, his brother Eddie plays lead guitar, their father Jerry plays bass, and their cousin John Sunkes plays percussion and mandolin. In early June of…

  • Alexander, Alger [Texas] · 8.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Blues singer Alger "Texas" Alexander was born in Jewett, Texas, on September 12, 1900, the son of Sam "Ernie" Alexander and Jennie Brooks. He was raised by his grandmother, Sally Beavers, in Richards. He spent most of…

  • Little Flock Cemetery · 8.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Little Flock Cemetery, a burial ground with roots stretching back to 1854 when the Little Flock Baptist Church first formed nearby. The cemetery itself began seeing burials around 1860, with Meedie…

  • Purcell, Mabelle Agnes Umland · 8.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through East Texas, perhaps near Jewett. Right here, in the early 1900s, a young Mabelle Umland graduated from high school. She'd moved here with her family after the devastating Galveston hurricane of…

  • Jewett, TX · 8.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Jewett, a town born from the railroad. In 1871, the International Railroad Company laid out this community, naming it for Judge Henry J. Jewett. It quickly became a hub, with a post office, a…

  • Jewett Methodist Church · 8.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Jewett, Texas, where Methodists found their spiritual home over a century ago. It all started in 1872, with services held in the home of William and Patience Ellis. Circuit rider James J. Davis…

  • James and Julia Anderson House · 8.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the former home of Captain James Anderson, a man who saw the end of the Civil War firsthand. Born in Ohio, Anderson settled in Leon County before enlisting in the Confederate Army in 1861. He served…

  • Site of Worthy Store · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Worthy Store in Donie. Back in 1906, Dillard Monroe Worthy opened this general merchandise store. It wasn't just dry goods, though; it offered farming supplies, a butcher shop,…

  • Wilson Chapel Cemetery · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Freestone County, past the Wilson Chapel Cemetery. It began as a burial site in 1867 when Frederich Wilson's daughter, Martha, was laid to rest here. Frederich himself is buried here, along with…

  • Powering Texas from Jewett's Backyard · 9.5 mi

    A few miles northwest of Jewett, over the county line in Limestone County, sits a stunning example of industrial engineering: the NRG Limestone Electric Generating Station. This massive power plant was built where it is…

  • From Cotton Fields to Steel Beams · 9.5 mi

    If you drive out of Jewett on Highway 79, you can't miss the sprawling industrial complex of the Nucor steel mill. It has been here a lot longer than people assume. Nucor opened it in 1975, its third mini-mill in six…

  • Made by the Railroad · 9.5 mi

    You're looking at the reason Jewett exists. In 1871 this spot was undeveloped land, and the established settlements in this part of Leon County were elsewhere. Then the International Railroad Company - the line that…

  • The Bear Grass Coal Mines · 9.5 mi

    Long before the massive power plant arrived, this country had its first affair with coal. Eight miles northwest of Jewett, in the corner of Leon County, sat a settlement called Bear Grass, and in 1906 the Bear Grass…

  • Jewett, TX · 9.5 mi

    Laid out in 1871 by the International Railroad Company, Jewett has a rich history tied to the expansion of the railroads in Texas. This development played a key role in shaping the city's growth and its connection to…

  • Antioch Cemetery · 10.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Freestone County, past the site of what was once the Luna community. After the Civil War, Edward and Frankie Ezell gave land for this Antioch Cemetery. The railroad bypassed Luna in 1906, and the…

  • Dew Cemetery · 10.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Dew Cemetery, a resting place with roots stretching back to the 1850s. Originally called Avant Prairie, this community grew around the Sunshine Methodist Church. In 1869, local merchant D.A. Self and…

  • The Town a Drink Company Tried to Rename · 10.4 mi

    Dew, Texas, got its name from a mistake. When the town applied for a post office in eighteen eighty five, folks asked to be called Drew, after a local resident. Postal officials misread the application, and Drew became…

  • How Mountain Dew Got Its Name · 10.4 mi

    Dew, Texas, was not named for the soda. It got its name in eighteen eighty five, when postal officials misread the name Drew. But the soda's name has its own story. In nineteen thirty two, two brothers, Barney and Ally…

  • The Other DEW · 10.4 mi

    Dew, Texas, got its name by accident. But in the nineteen fifties, another DEW was built on purpose, across the top of the world. It stood for Distant Early Warning, a chain of radar stations meant to spot Soviet…

  • Keechi Creek · 10.9 mi

    Centerville sits cradled between two branches of Keechi Creek, and the branch Interstate 45 bridges just north of town once ran right past a sizable Native farming village. The Keechi, more properly the Kichai, a…

  • Compton Cemetery · 11.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Compton Cemetery, a quiet resting place that began with a family tragedy. In 1855, Elizabeth Blackmon Compton Johnson, the eldest daughter of William Scott and Angelina Compton, was laid to rest…

  • Whaley, David M. · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what is now Leon County, Texas, a place that was home to David M. Whaley. He came here in 1853, a druggist who cared for the frontier's sick. But Whaley was also a soldier. He served in the Texas…

  • Lusk, Robert Orville · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Leon County, Texas, and right here is the area where Robert Orville Lusk settled. He arrived in Texas in 1833, fighting in the Texas Revolution, including the Grass Fight and the Siege of Bexar.…

  • Middleton, William B. · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    William B. Middleton, pioneer, sheriff, and legislator, was born on August 4, 1819, in Crawford County, Illinois. In 1837 his father moved the family to Texas, and they settled in Leon County. The family and eleven…

  • Alley, Abraham · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once the wild Texas frontier. Right here, Abraham Alley arrived in 1822, landing on Galveston Island and making his way to the settlements. He was a farmer, a soldier in campaigns against…

  • Kittrell, Norman Goree · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once the old Twelfth Judicial District, a sprawling area that included Leon County. Right here, in the mid-1880s, a man named Norman Goree Kittrell was serving as both district attorney…

  • Old Bowling, TX · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Old Bowling is a rural community located at the end of Farm Road 1147 about fourteen miles west southwest of Centerville in western Leon County. Settlement in the region had begun by the late 1850s and early 1860s, and…

  • Concord, TX (Leon County) · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through western Leon County, and right here is the site of Concord. This community was established sometime between 1856 and 1893, but the name likely comes from the hometown of its first settlers:…

  • Leon County · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Leon County, a place shaped by the frontier struggles of the 1800s. Right here, settlers pushed into lands still claimed by Native American tribes. In 1837, after attacks like the one on Fort…

  • Bear Grass, TX · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Bear Grass is near the intersection of Farm roads 1512 and 1146, eight miles northwest of Jewett in the northwest corner of Leon County. The site was settled in the 1850s. The Bear Grass post office was established in…

  • Centerview, TX (Leon County) · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Centerview is a rural community located on Farm Road 811 about ten miles east of Centerville in southeastern Leon County. The settlement began in the late 1800s, and from 1886 to 1905 a post office operated under the…

  • Flo, TX · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Flo, also known as Kidd's Mill, Wheelock, Bethlehem, Oneta, New Hope, Oden(s), and Midway, is on Farm roads 1151 and 831 and Wheelock Creek twelve miles northeast of Centerville in central Leon County. There Thaddeus O.…

  • Flynn, TX · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Flynn is on Farm roads 977 and 39, twelve miles southwest of Centerville in Leon County. When the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway arrived in the area around 1906, Flynn developed by the line. In 1907 the Houston and…

  • Middleton, TX · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Middleton is at the intersection of Farm roads 811 and 119, near Boggy Creek nine miles southeast of Centerville in southeastern Leon County. The community, named for William B. Middleton (the first sheriff of Leon…

  • Union Cemetery · 12.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Union Cemetery, a place that's been serving this community for over a century and a half. It started way back in 1860, when Jacob Tacker gave this land for both a school and a graveyard. For a while,…

  • Trooper Damon Allen Memorial Highway · 13.0 mi · Historical Marker

    Honors Trooper Damon Charles Allen, Texas DPS Groesbeck, killed Thanksgiving Day November 23, 2017, during a traffic stop on US-84 in Freestone County by Dabrett Black. Case produced the Damon Allen Act (SB 6, 2021),…

  • Butler faded while Oakwood moved for mud · 13.8 mi

    Northwest of Oakwood, over in southeastern Freestone County, sits the old town of Butler. Before the railroad it was the center of life around here — a store and warehouse from 1852, a church by 1854, a post office, a…

  • Black Gold of a Different Kind · 13.8 mi

    While cotton was king on the surface around Oakwood, there was a different kind of wealth underneath: lignite, the soft brown coal of the Wilcox belt that runs right under Leon and Freestone counties. The outfit that…

  • Engineering the Lignite Boom · 13.8 mi

    The country around Oakwood sits on lignite - a soft, brownish coal, geologically young, pressed out of the vegetation of ancient swamps in what geologists call the Wilcox group. Getting it out was the engineering…

  • Oakwood, TX · 13.8 mi

    The racial makeup of Oakwood is diverse, with 62.42% White, 35.03% African American, 0.21% Native American, 0.21% Asian, and 1.70% from other races. Hispanic or Latino of any race make up 3.18% of the population,…

  • Haley, Captain Richard B. · 14.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're passing the spot where Captain Richard B. Haley lived out his long life. Born in Tennessee, Haley came to Texas in 1824, way before it was even a republic. He fought in the Texas Revolution, taking part in the…

  • Salem Predestinarian Baptist Church and Cemetery · 14.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Salem Predestinarian Baptist Church, one of Freestone County's oldest. <break time="400ms"/> It was founded way back on December 3rd, 1853, by the Lee families, with Elders Thomas…

  • Oakes Cemetery · 14.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Oakes Cemetery, a final resting place that began with two burials back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1861</say-as>. Later, John Collins Oakes and his wife Winnie, who came from Alabama…

  • Texas HS Baseball Playoff Leaders 2026: Centerville (Centerville) · 14.5 mi

    Centerville put 3 players on the statewide leaderboards of the 2026 Texas high school baseball playoffs. Kolt Larsen had 60 strikeouts (1st in the state), and 11 stolen bases (5th in the state). Drew Larsen had 7 stolen…

  • Concord Missionary Baptist Church · 14.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Concord Missionary Baptist Church, founded way back on April 21, 1855. Pioneer settlers organized this church before their community even had a name. Isaac Burleson donated the land,…

  • Centerville - Birthplace of Lightnin' Hopkins · 14.7 mi · Historical Marker

    Sam Hopkins was born in this small Leon County town in 1912 and grew up picking guitar on a farm where electricity hadn't arrived yet. He met Blind Lemon Jefferson at a country picnic as a child and followed the older…

  • Leon County Courthouse · 14.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Leon County Courthouse in Centerville. Built in 1887 from locally made slate brick, it's one of the oldest courthouses in Texas still in its original condition. This site has seen two previous…

  • Lightnin' Hopkins Built His First Guitar Out of a Cigar Box Here · 14.8 mi

    One of the most influential bluesmen in American history started life right here. Sam Hopkins, who the world would come to know as Lightnin', was born in Centerville in 1911 or 1912, the youngest child of Abe and…

  • Hopkins, Sam [Lightnin'] · 14.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through East Texas, not far from where the legendary bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins was born in Centerville. Born Sam Hopkins in 1911, he taught himself to play on a cigar-box guitar by age eight. He learned…

  • The Stockade Fort That Held This Frontier · 14.8 mi

    A few miles south of where you are now, in the spring of 1840, Tennessee and Mississippi families pushed into the wedge of land between the Navasota and Trinity rivers, the first settlement north of the Old San Antonio…

  • Woody's Smokehouse and the Jerky Capital of I-45 · 14.8 mi

    If you've ever driven I-45 between Houston and Dallas, you've almost certainly seen the signs for Woody's Smokehouse, and the big northbound store sits at 947 West St. Mary's Street in Centerville. The whole operation…

  • Halfway to Everywhere · 14.8 mi

    Centerville was named for sitting in the center of Leon County, not for Dallas or Houston, but it landed near the middle of that drive anyway. By Interstate Forty Five's mile markers, the Centerville exit is about a…

  • The Town Named for Sitting Dead Center · 14.8 mi

    You're rolling into a town whose entire name is a survey decision. When Leon County organized in 1846, it parked its government at Leona, down on the southern edge near the Old San Antonio Road. The problem was…

  • The Ranching Family That Gave the County a State Park · 14.8 mi

    If you want the family whose name runs deepest under modern Centerville, look to the Crains and the Sullivans, longtime ranching and banking people in this town. Their land wrapped the original Fort Boggy site, ground…

  • The Oldest Highway in Texas Skirts the County's Edge · 14.8 mi

    Down along the southern rim of Leon County runs a road far older than the interstate you may have driven in on. The Old San Antonio Road, the Spanish El Camino Real de los Tejas, was first blazed by expeditions starting…

  • The Night the Courthouse Burned to Its Vaults · 14.8 mi

    On the night of November 9, 1885, the courthouse on this square went up in flames. The building had stood since 1856, a brick structure replacing the town's first log courthouse, and it took with it the ordinary…

  • How Brick Boxes Saved the County's Memory · 14.8 mi

    Here's the engineering lesson hiding inside the Leon County courthouse story. When the 1856 courthouse burned in November 1885, the records that survived were the ones locked inside two brick vaults, while everything in…

  • The 1987 Tornado That Tore Across Two Counties · 14.8 mi

    On the afternoon of November 15, 1987, the worst tornado in Centerville's recorded history came grinding out of the southwest. Rated F3 on the old Fujita scale, it was part of a larger East Texas outbreak that day, a…

  • Two Jury Boxes, Two Witness Stands, and a Famous Complaint · 14.8 mi

    Step into the restored district courtroom on the Centerville square and you'll notice something most Texas courthouses don't have: two jury boxes and two witness stands instead of one of each, an unusual doubled layout…

  • Town Cafe: The County Seat's Home Kitchen · 14.8 mi

    Just off the I-45 exit, where Highway 7 runs into the old county-seat town, Town Cafe at 136 TX-75 is the kind of small-town diner that anchors a Texas square. It's not a chain and it's not trying to be, and that's…

  • Centerville, TX · 14.8 mi

    The name Centerville is quite literal and geographically descriptive. It was so named because it is near the geographic center of Leon County. This strategic location has likely contributed to its historical importance…

  • Gould, Robert Simonton · 14.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Leon County, and right here in Centerville, a man named Robert Simonton Gould made a choice that sent him straight into the heart of the Civil War. A lawyer and judge, Gould was a member of the…

  • Centerville, TX (Leon County) · 14.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Centerville, Texas, the county seat of Leon County. This town owes its existence to a legislative requirement for centrality! Back in 1850, the old county seat, Leona, was just too inconvenient.…

  • First United Methodist Church of Centerville · 14.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Centerville's first United Methodist Church. Organized in 1850, the congregation met in a schoolhouse before building their first sanctuary in 1871. During World War II, the church's…

  • Friendship Cemetery · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Leon County, past Friendship Cemetery. This burial ground dates back to at least 1870, with the earliest dated marker for Josa Hood. Though time and vandals have taken their toll, descendants…

  • Concord Schools · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Robbins, where formal schools operated in the Concord area for nearly a century. Starting in the late 1870s, education evolved from a single teacher to a two-story brick building by 1920. The…

  • Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Oakwood (Oakwood) · 15.4 mi

    Oakwood (Oakwood, TX) placed on the 2A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Dayden Velasquez (2 HR).

  • Oakwood, TX · 15.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Oakwood, a town that owes its existence to the railroad and a whole lot of oak trees. Established in 1872 as a station on the International-Great Northern Railroad, it was first called Oakwoods.…

  • The Birth of the Blues: Lightnin' Hopkins · 15.5 mi

    The world knows him as Lightnin' Hopkins, but here in Centerville, he was just Sam Hopkins, born in 1912. He grew up in a world of cotton fields and dusty roads, and his music became a living record of that life. He…

  • The Town the Train Passed By · 15.5 mi

    Look at the impressive Leon County Courthouse, built in 1887. That building is the reason Centerville survived. In the 1870s, when the International-Great Northern Railroad laid its tracks south, it was a death sentence…

  • The Buried Energy Beneath Your Wheels · 15.5 mi

    As you drive through the rolling hills of Leon County, you're traveling over a buried source of energy. Beneath the surface lies the Wilcox Group, a formation laid down in the Paleocene and Eocene, roughly fifty million…

  • The Concrete River: I-45 · 15.5 mi

    The highway you're on right now, Interstate 45, is the second great transportation story of Centerville. The first was the railroad that bypassed the town in the 1870s, stunting its growth. For nearly a hundred years,…

  • St. Paul Shiloh High School · 15.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of St. Paul Shiloh High School, a testament to the power of education for freedmen after the Civil War. Organized in 1875, this school for African American students eventually merged in 1934…

  • Mt. Zion Methodist Church and Cemetery · 16.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Mt. Zion Methodist Church and Cemetery, a community hub for over a century. The first log building went up in 1854, founded by Reverends G. W. Walker and Timothy Green. By 1860, the…

  • Mt. Pisgah Church and Cemetery · 16.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Mt. Pisgah Church and Cemetery, a place with roots stretching back to the mid-1800s. While records don't pinpoint the exact start of the cemetery, the earliest marked grave here belongs to John…

  • Personville · 16.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Personville, a town that started with a bang in 1854. Benjamin Person laid out the streets, and by 1855, a post office was up and running. The town grew to include a bank, hotel, a dozen…

  • Long Hollow Community · 16.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through what used to be Long Hollow, a community named for the pioneer Long family. It was built around a schoolhouse that went up in the 1880s, which also served as the town's church and community…

  • The Navasota River's Many Names · 16.7 mi

    The Navasota River, in central-east Texas, has carried several names. The indigenous people knew it as the Nabasoto. The Spanish explorer Domingo Teran de los Rios called it the San Cypriano; the Franciscan missionary…

  • Butler Soldiers' Homes, C.S.A. · 16.7 mi · Historical Marker

    As you drive through Butler, look for signs of a unique Civil War effort. Texas counties usually outfitted their soldiers, but some communities went further, creating 'soldiers' homes.' These were places where civilians…

  • Headlee, Dr. Emmet · 16.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Teague's oldest home, built back in 1906. The builder, born in 1848, was the son of a Methodist preacher and a Confederate Army surgeon. He arrived in Texas in 1866 and became a true civic leader in…

  • John F. Wallace House · 17.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the home of John F. Wallace, a man who wore many hats in Freestone County. Wallace arrived in Teague in 1908, working as a pharmacist. But by 1912, he was already living at this address, and around…

  • Daniel Memorial Orphanage · 17.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Daniel Memorial Orphanage, a place founded by Jennings Bryan Daniel and his family to care for homeless children. They acquired former military barracks and an army chapel to create…

  • Driver Cemetery · 17.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Driver Cemetery, a resting place with roots stretching back to 1852. That's when Julius Driver arrived from Georgia, buying land and eventually donating over four acres for this very cemetery.…

  • The Magic City Railroad Boom · 17.3 mi

    In 1906 the railroad rewrote this place. A drowsy country village called Brewer had stood here for decades when the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway picked the spot as its division point, halfway between Fort Worth and…

  • Engineering a Railroad Hub · 17.3 mi

    The existence of Teague as a town is a case study in transportation engineering. When the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway planned its Fort Worth-to-Houston route in 1905, it faced a critical logistical problem: steam…

  • The One-Dollar Depot That Became a Museum · 17.3 mi

    The handsome two-story building at 208 South Third Avenue was once called one of the finest railroad stations in Texas. Completed in 1907 at a cost of about 20,000 dollars, it served as the Trinity and Brazos Valley…

  • Boyd, William Rufus, Jr. · 17.3 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Freestone County, and right here in Teague, you're passing through the hometown of William Rufus Boyd Jr. He was a banker, a lawyer, and an organizer, but his biggest role came during World War…

  • Trooper Damon Allen Memorial Highway · 17.3 mi · Historical Marker

    US Highway Eighty Four through Freestone and Limestone counties is named for Trooper Damon Allen. On Thanksgiving Day, two thousand seventeen, Allen pulled over a speeding car on Interstate Forty Five south of…

  • Burlington-Rock Island Railroad Museum · 17.3 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Teague, and right here is a building that's a testament to local preservation. This is the Burlington-Rock Island Railroad Museum, housed in the original Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway depot,…

  • Teague, TX · 17.3 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Teague, Texas, a town that owes its very existence to the railroad. Originally known as Brewer, this community got a major upgrade in 1906 when the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway built its…

  • Teague, TX · 17.3 mi

    Teague wouldn't be Teague without agriculture. The land here, that mix of sandy loam and gentle hills, is just right for grazing cattle and growing hay. You'll see pastures dotted with Black Angus and Brahman crosses, a…

  • First Baptist Church of Teague · 17.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Teague, and right here is the site of the First Baptist Church. This congregation started way back in 1877, organized as a small Baptist group in the village of Brewer Prairie. When the town got…

  • Rock-and-Roll · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Texas, a state that's a bedrock of American music. Long before Buddy Holly or Janis Joplin, Texas was brewing the sounds that would become rock and roll. Right here, in what is now Freestone…

  • The Beetle Behind the Boll Weevil Line · 17.4 mi

    Teague's railroad had a nickname: the Boll Weevil. The line hauled cotton, and it was named for the beetle wrecking that very crop. The boll weevil, Anthonomus grandis, is a quarter-inch snout beetle native to Mexico…

  • The Town a Railroad Man Named for His Mother · 17.4 mi

    Before it had its name, this was a small farm settlement called Brewer. That changed in 1906, when the Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway laid its line through western Freestone County and chose the spot for its machine…

  • Slaughter, William Baxter · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Freestone County, near where Bill Slaughter was born back in 1852. He grew up on the frontier, learning the cattle business from his famous father and brothers. In 1867, he made his first trail…

  • Old Division Point Office for the "Boll Weevil" Railway · 17.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising past the old division point office for the 'Boll Weevil' Railway. Chartered as the Trinity & Brazos Valley, this line earned its nickname from special trains that roared down its tracks, carrying folks…

  • Town of Teague · 17.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Teague, Freestone County, a town that owes its very existence to a railroad boom. Back in 1905, this was just a quiet village called Brewer. But then, in 1906, the Trinity & Brazos Valley Railroad…

  • Hanna, Andrew Barry · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Freestone County, Texas, where Andrew Barry Hanna made his final home. Hanna was a lieutenant on the Somervell Expedition and a survivor of the ill-fated Mier Expedition into Mexico in 1842. He…

  • Phillips, George Washington · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Freestone County, Texas, and right here is the area where a unique gospel musician, George Washington Phillips, made his mark. Born in 1880, Phillips was a farmer and preacher before Columbia…

  • Donie, TX · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Donie is on State Highway 164 eleven miles south of Teague in southwest Freestone County. The site was probably settled in the 1880s. The Dewey Prairie Baptist Church was organized in 1886, and in 1898 the residents…

  • Fairfield Lake · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Fairfield Lake is on Big Brown Creek about eight miles northeast of Fairfield in northeastern Freestone County. In 1967 Texas Power and Light Company, Texas Electric Service Company, and Dallas Power and Light Company…

  • Stewards Mill, TX · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Stewards Mill is at the intersection of Farm roads 833 and 2547, seven miles north of Fairfield in north central Freestone County. It was established in 1849 and named after Washington Steward of South Carolina, who…

  • Young, TX · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Young is just off Farm Road 1124 ten miles northeast of Fairfield in northeastern Freestone County. It was named for an early settler of the area, Dr. Tolbert Fannin Young, who moved to Texas from Memphis, Tennessee, in…

  • Bonner, William · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Freestone County, the heart of what was once William Bonner's vast plantation. Bonner arrived here in the early 1850s, already a wealthy man from Alabama. By 1860, he was reportedly the wealthiest…

  • Avant Prairie, TX · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Avant Prairie is off State Highway 179 four miles southeast of Teague in southwestern Freestone County. By 1848 a few settlers, including Charles Kilgore, had moved to the area. In 1852 more families from Alabama,…

  • Butler, TX (Freestone County) · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Butler is on U.S. Highway 84 fourteen miles southeast of Fairfield in southeast Freestone County. In 1852, at a nearby location known as West Point Hill, John T. Gill built a store and warehouse, which he moved a few…

  • Cade Chapel, TX · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Cade Chapel, formerly known as Cade, is a tiny rural community located on Farm Road 246 about seventeen miles south of Corsicana and two miles west of Streetman. The town straddles the borderline of southern Navarro and…

  • Luna, TX · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Luna was at the intersection of Farm roads 489 and 1451 in Freestone County. On December 22, 1826, empresario David G. Burnet received a contract to colonize this area; he later sold his interest in this land venture to…

  • Woodland, TX (Freestone County) · 17.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Woodland is on Farm Road 1449 two miles northwest of Kirvin in northwest Freestone County. The area was settled in the late 1840s and early 1850s by pioneer families. A church was organized in 1854 and a school before…

  • Boyd, Jr., William Rufus · 17.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the marker for William Rufus Boyd, Jr., a man who packed a lot into his life! Born in 1885, he was licensed to practice law at just 19 and became Teague's first mayor at 21. He led the U.S. Chamber…

  • Notley, Llewellyn · 17.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Teague, Freestone County, past the life of Llewellyn Notley. Born in Paris, Texas, in 1888, Notley dedicated his life to education and history. After earning his degrees from the University of…

  • Old Bowling School and Masonic Lodge · 17.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Old Bowling School and Masonic Lodge, built by settlers around 1860. This building served as a central hub for the community, hosting meetings and gatherings. Even today, a reunion is…

  • Antioch Cemetery · 18.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Antioch Cemetery. ANTIOCH CEMETERY THE BEGINNING OF ANTIOCH CEMETERY IS VERY CLOSELY ASSOCIATED WITH THE TURLINGTON COMMUNITY, THE ANTIOCH AND MT. ZION CHURCHES, AND THE SURROUNDING RURAL AREA. THE…

  • Rogers, Allan Jefferson · 18.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Lost Prairie, and right here is the marker for Allan Jefferson Rogers. He was a Sergeant in Company K of Bass' Regiment, part of the 20th Texas Cavalry. Rogers saw action across Arkansas, Indian…

  • Rogers, Mrs. Martha · 18.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Martha Rogers' final home in Lost Prairie. Born around 1795, Martha was the daughter of General James Wilkinson, a big name in the early United States Army. But when she married Benjamin…

  • Lost Prairie Cemetery and Church · 18.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Limestone County, and right here is Lost Prairie. Legend says a man got lost in the woods, stumbled onto this prairie, and named it. This spot became a community hub. Volunteers established this…

  • McKenzie Cemetery · 18.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past McKenzie Cemetery, a quiet resting place that started with a tragedy on the frontier. Back in 1853, Joseph S. McKenzie and his family settled this area, then known as McKenzie Prairie. But the first…

  • Moore, Azariah G. · 18.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Azariah G. Moore's Texas service. He fought in the Texas War for Independence, serving with Captain Billingsley's Mina Volunteers in 1836. This was a pivotal year in Texas history, and…

  • Reeves, Mrs. Mary E. · 18.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a Texas pioneer woman who lived a long and impactful life. Mary Ellephan Hawkins was born way back in Georgia in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1828</say-as>. She married William…

  • From the Fairfield Eagles to the Pro Bowl · 18.4 mi

    The football field at Fairfield High School turned out one of the best defensive ends the state ever produced. Tony Brackens, born in Fairfield on December 26, 1974, grew up here and starred for the Class 3A Fairfield…

  • Lignite: The Hidden Power Beneath Your Tires · 18.7 mi

    As you travel through Marquez, you're driving over a massive, hidden source of energy. The geology here, part of the Wilcox Group, is packed with lignite, a soft brownish-black coal. It isn't as rich as the hard coal of…

  • Marquez, TX · 18.7 mi

    Marquez is a diverse community with a rich ethnic heritage. According to the 2000 census, the racial makeup of the city was 81.82% White, 8.64% African American, 1.36% Native American, and 8.18% from other races.…

  • The Pitching Ace Who Vanished Into a New Name · 18.8 mi

    Marquez can claim one of the strangest lives in baseball history. Dave K. Brown was born here on June 9, 1897, the youngest of nine children of farm laborers, and he became one of the leading pitchers of early Negro…

  • The Disposable Syringe That Was Killing Cattle Embryos · 18.8 mi

    Out here in the cattle country around Marquez, one of Texas's stranger science detective stories played out in the late 1970s and 1980s, when Granada Genetics ran a major commercial cattle embryo-transfer operation in…

  • The Centerville Marine Who Stepped Between · 18.8 mi

    Interstate Forty Five through Leon County, between mile markers One Fifty One and One Sixty Eight, is the Sergeant Wade Daniel Wilson Memorial Highway. Wade Wilson played football and ran track at Centerville High…

  • The Railroad Town Built on a Woman's Land · 18.8 mi

    The little crossroads you're rolling through near U.S. 79 and State Highway 7 didn't grow up around a wagon trail. Marquez was deliberately laid out in 1871 as a station on the International-Great Northern Railroad, and…

  • The Fire That Nearly Wiped Marquez Off the Map · 18.8 mi

    Stand in what's left of Marquez's small commercial center and picture December 1920, when a major fire tore through the business district and nearly erased it. A period newspaper put it bluntly: the little town, it…

  • The Private Academy That Held a Third of the Town · 18.8 mi

    In 1902, Marquez had a remarkable year for such a small place. The town got telephone service and, in the same stretch of confidence and modernization, opened Leon Academy, a private school that enrolled 166 students.…

  • The Last Building of a Vanished Settlement · 18.8 mi

    A few miles from Marquez, off FM 1147, stands the Old Bowling School and Masonic Lodge, a weathered two-story building settlers raised around 1860. Over the years it served as a school, a church, a community meeting…

  • The Lake Built to Cool Power Plants · 18.8 mi

    Southeast of Marquez, on the upper Navasota River, lies Lake Limestone, and despite how natural it looks, it's entirely engineered. The Brazos River Authority completed it in 1978 as a water-supply reservoir, and here's…

  • Colonel Wm. L. Moody · 18.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Fairfield, Freestone County, where Colonel William L. Moody made his mark. He arrived in Texas from Virginia back in 1852. When the Civil War broke out, Moody organized the first Freestone County…

  • Fort Boggy · 18.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Leon County, near Centerville, where settlers faced a constant threat from Native American tribes. Back around 1840, families like the Middletons and Staleys were trying to make a home here, but…

  • W. L. Moody Confederate Reunion Grounds · 18.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the W. L. Moody Confederate Reunion Grounds, a place that's been a gathering spot since 1891. Organized by ex-Confederates and named for Colonel William Lewis Moody, these grounds hosted thousands…

  • The Store That Was Only a Window · 18.8 mi

    Northwest of Marquez once sat Long Hollow, a small farming community whose heart was a combination school, church, and community center. After that building burned in 1918, residents rallied and put up a larger…

  • The Brandin Iron Cafe · 18.8 mi

    If you want a meal in Marquez that isn't manufactured for tourists, the Brandin Iron Cafe at roughly 337 West Carrington Avenue is the genuine local stop. It's a small-town diner of the classic Texas kind, the sort of…

  • Fort Boggy, Site of · 18.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Fort Boggy, established back in 1840. This was the headquarters for the Boggy and Trinity Rangers, led by Captain Thomas N. B. Greer. A blockhouse was built here that year to serve as…

  • Tubb Cemetery · 18.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Tubb Cemetery, a final resting place for folks who settled this part of Leon County. The first marked grave belongs to Joel D. Leathers, who died in <say-as interpret-as="date"…

  • The Ranger at the Still · 18.9 mi

    In April nineteen twenty eight, three special Texas Rangers crept up on a whiskey still about seven miles west of Fairfield, and only two of them walked away. On April nineteenth, Rangers Boone Anderson, W. J. Hancock,…

  • Freestone County Bourbon de Luxe · 18.9 mi

    Ten miles northeast of Fairfield is a place called Young, and during Prohibition it was known as a bootleg capital. When farming collapsed in the early nineteen twenties, Freestone County lost hundreds of farms in just…

  • The Sheriff at the Planter's Hotel · 18.9 mi

    On a Saturday morning in March eighteen seventy two, Freestone County Sheriff James Rogers walked up to three strangers sitting in front of the Planter's Hotel in Fairfield. He suspected they were horse thieves. That,…

  • Love, David Hall · 18.9 mi

    You're driving past the site where David Hall Love lived out his days. He was a veteran of the Texas War for Independence, and a hero at the Battle of San Jacinto. On April 21, 1836, Love and eleven comrades captured…

  • The Month Fairfield Was Under Martial Law · 18.9 mi

    In the fall of eighteen seventy one, Fairfield was placed under martial law. It was Reconstruction, and Texas held an election from October third through the sixth. Reports came out of Fairfield, the Freestone County…

  • The Tornado That Took the Courthouse Clock · 18.9 mi

    On the afternoon of May eighteenth, nineteen oh two, a tornado traveled about forty miles across Limestone and Freestone counties, and it ended its run in Fairfield. It started near Ben Hur, passed near Horn Hill and…

  • Hold Up · 18.9 mi

    In August nineteen eighteen, a Freestone County constable chased two burglars by car, and when he told them to stop, they shot him. Constable Brag Dunbar was forty-eight. After a house was broken into, he and the…

  • Rogers, James Bonner · 18.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Freestone County, just past where Sheriff James Bonner Rogers met his end. It was 1872, a truly lawless time. Rogers was known for his bravery, once pursuing horse thieves alone after his deputy…

  • Dorham, McKinley Howard [Kenny] · 18.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Fairfield, Texas, the birthplace of McKinley Howard "Kenny" Dorham. Born in 1924, Dorham became one of the finest trumpet players of his era, a true innovator in the bebop jazz scene. He played…

  • Gregg, John · 18.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Freestone County, Texas, and right here is where John Gregg made his home before becoming a Confederate general. Born in Alabama, Gregg moved to Fairfield in 1852, practiced law, and even started…

  • Fairfield, TX · 18.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Fairfield, Texas, a town born from a need for a county seat. Originally called Mound Prairie, the name changed to Fairfield in 1850 when this spot was chosen to govern Freestone County. Settlers…

  • The Cook Who Became a National Treasure · 18.9 mi

    One of the most honored quilters in America began quilting for herself only after an accident ended her first career. Laverne Brackens grew up in Fairfield, the oldest girl of eight children, and learned quilting as a…

  • Dogan High's Wildcats · 18.9 mi

    For more than forty years, Fairfield's Black students went to Dogan High School, and its basketball team kept reaching the state finals. The first public school for African American children in Fairfield opened in…

  • The Machine That Eats Brown Coal · 18.9 mi

    The Big Brown power plant near Fairfield burned Freestone County lignite, a soft coal the Germans call brown coal. And in Germany's brown-coal pits work some of the biggest machines ever built. The most famous is Bagger…

  • Bradley, L. D. · 18.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Freestone County, and right here is Fairfield, the Texas home of L.D. Bradley. Bradley was a lawyer and judge, but during the Civil War, he raised troops for the Confederacy. He served with Waul's…

  • Freestone County · 18.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Freestone County, right in the heart of East Texas. This land was once home to Caddoan tribes, and later, a place where ambitious empresarios like David G. Burnet tried to settle families. But for…

  • Johnson, Joseph Burton · 18.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Freestone County, right where Joseph Burton Johnson built his life after fighting in the Indian Wars and the Mexican-American War. He came to Texas in 1848, settling first in Tyler County, then…

  • Sold the Week Texas Seceded · 18.9 mi

    In February eighteen sixty one, in the same week that the Secession Convention voted to take Texas out of the Union, Fairfield's college for women was sold at public auction. Fairfield Female College had opened in…

  • A Galveston Empire Started Here · 18.9 mi

    One of the great financial empires of Texas started with a sickly baby born in Fairfield. William Lewis Moody Jr. was born here on January twenty-fifth, eighteen sixty five. He was one of only three of the six Moody…

  • The Medal Taken Away and Given Back · 18.9 mi

    A sprinter born in Fairfield won an Olympic medal, lost it, and got it back. Nanceen Perry was born here in nineteen seventy seven. At the two thousand Olympics in Sydney, she ran for the United States in the women's…

  • Philpott, Benjamin Allen · 18.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Freestone County, heading towards Fairfield. Right here, Benjamin Allen Philpott served as a lieutenant colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. After eighteen months of service, he…

  • Fairfield Lake State Park · 18.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Fairfield Lake State Park is on Farm Road 3285 on the southern and southwestern shores of Fairfield Lake, six miles northeast of Fairfield in northeastern Freestone County. On November 2, 1971, the State of Texas signed…

  • Fairfield Female College · 19.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Fairfield, Texas, and right here is the site of the Fairfield Female College. Founded by the Freestone School Association, this place opened its doors in 1859, with Dr. Henry Lee Graves at the…

  • Rev. George Washington Baines · 19.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the resting place of Reverend George Washington Baines, a giant of Texas religious history. Born in North Carolina, he was largely self-educated, rafting timber to pay for his schooling before…

  • Marquez, TX · 19.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Marquez, Texas, a town that owes its existence to the railroad and a woman's name. In 1871, this spot was laid out as a station on the International-Great Northern Railroad. It was named for María…

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