Cleburne's contribution to the birth of rock and roll was a guitar-slinging kid named Johnny Carroll, born here on October 23, 1937. His family name was actually Carrell, but when the Decca label misspelled it Carroll on his first records, the spelling stuck for the rest of his career. Carroll grew up mostly on the family farm in nearby Godley and bought his first guitar at age nine with money he earned hauling water at a World War II prisoner-of-war camp; his fiddle-playing mother taught him the basics and the radio taught him the rest. By the mid-1950s he was cutting raw, frantic rockabilly sides for Decca, music that flopped commercially at the time but is now treasured by collectors as some of the wildest Texas rock and roll of the era. He even appeared in the 1956 teen-rock film Rock, Baby, Rock It, partly shot around Dallas, performing the kind of hopped-up hillbilly rock that scandalized parents and thrilled kids. Long after his death, European labels reissued his catalog and rockabilly revivalists made him a cult hero. It all started with a farm boy from Johnson County. (Source: Handbook of Texas.)

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History of Cleburne

The Cleburne Demands RoadyGoat

1886

In the summer of 1886, two hundred and forty delegates of the Texas Farmers' Alliance gathered in Cleburne and issued a seventeen-point platform that became known as the Cleburne Demands. They called for regulating the railroads, reforming the nation's money and land policies, and protecting working people, at a moment when farmers felt crushed by freight rates and debt. That same year, Texas farmers had backed striking rail workers by boycotting the railroads and feeding the strikers. Historians often point to this document as the first great statement of the farmers' revolt, a seed of the populist movement that would shake American politics a decade later. It is one of those quiet small-town moments that turned out to echo across the whole country.

The Courthouse That Burned the Day the Titanic Sank RoadyGoat

The grand courthouse anchoring Cleburne's square has a haunting coincidence in its past. The county's previous building, an ornate Second Empire courthouse completed in 1883 by noted Texas architect W. C. Dodson, burned to the ground on April 15, 1912, the very same day the Titanic went down in the North Atlantic. While the world's attention was fixed on the ocean, Johnson County lost its seat of government to fire. The replacement, finished in 1913, broke sharply with the heavy Victorian look that dominated Texas courthouses. The Dallas firm of Lang and Witchell, with project architect Charles E. Barglebaugh, designed it in a striking Prairie School style layered with Classical Revival detail, all strong horizontal lines, flat hipped roofs, pink granite and Elgin brick. It's considered one of the most architecturally significant courthouses in the state. After a full restoration funded through the Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation Program, the building was rededicated on December 1, 2007, and stands on the downtown square as both a working courthouse and a museum. (Source: Texas Historical Commission.)

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Dial Telephones, Years Ahead of the World RoadyGoat

1903

Here is a forgotten Texas first. Around 1903, a little company in Cleburne installed some of the earliest dial telephones in the entire country, machines that let people connect their own calls automatically, without an operator, years before that technology caught on anywhere else. It was the first automatic telephone exchange in Texas. For a brief moment, this railroad town in Johnson County was quietly ahead of nearly the whole world in how a phone call actually worked. Then in 1912 a fire destroyed the equipment, the company folded, and the dial phones went silent, a small lost chapter of Texas being first at something almost nobody remembers today.

Pioneer Texas Telephones

1878

The first telephones in Texas, in 1878, connected the "Galveston News" with the home of its publisher, Col. A. H. Belo. Galveston also had the first exchange, 1879, and first long-distance line, which ran to Houston, in 1883. Cleburne phone service began 1882 when Automatic Telephone Company opened. In 1897 Southwestern Telegraph and Telephone Company (which later joined Bell System) started another firm. It built city's first long distance line, 12 miles to Alvarado junction. Monthly rates were $2 to $3. About 1904, the Automatic Telephone Company installed some of first dial phones in U.S.- fifteen years before they were used successfully elsewhere. But in 1912, problems forced the Automatic Telephone Company to close. Near turn of century, rural areas often used barbed wire fences for phone lines. Even urban homes shared party lines, each one having its special "ring". Circuits joined a main switchboard manned by one operator "central"--- the hub of local news. "Central" always knew where to find town doctor and was a clearing house for funeral plans. The unemployed could ask her who needed workers; she advertised by ringing all phones to read announcements. Many small towns regretted losing her services when dial phones came into use. By 1966, Texas had 4,474,722 telephones, 134 companies. Incise in base: Early travel, transportation and communication series erected by the Moody Foundation.

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Rodgers, Floyd H. [Slats]

1912

Floyd H. (Slats) Rodgers, aviation pioneer, was born in Tunnel Hill, Georgia, on March 7, 1889, the son of Charlie and Alice (Russell) Rodgers. He moved with the family to Keene, Texas, and after a brief education moved to the farm of an uncle near Waco. At the age of eighteen he applied for employment with the railroad; he advanced to locomotive engineer on the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe in 1915. That same year he married Rosie Oliver; they had four children and were later divorced. Rodgers's boyhood experience with kites evolved into an avid interest in flying. Largely self-taught, he began to read extensively about planes. He first built a model plane that he put on display, and soon decided to build a larger version. With the help of John C. Fine, an engineer he met working on the Santa Fe, Rodgers designed and built a primitive aircraft, reputed to be the first built in Texas, which he flew without instruction in late 1912, a mere nine years after the first manned airplane flight by the Wright brothers. Because of a persistent droop in one wing Rodgers called the plane Old Soggy No. 1; he retired it in 1913. He became a civilian flight instructor for the army in 1916 and went on to fly army-surplus Jennies and Canucks as a barnstormer and circus stunt pilot after World War I . During prohibition he bought his own plane to ferry bootleg liquor from Mexico to Texas. He was involved in gambling and moonshining operations and eventually served six months in a Dallas jail for his illegal activities. After prohibition, as livelihood from barnstorming waned, he turned to crop dusting in the lower Rio Grande valley. On special charter requests he would sometimes shock his passenger with unforgettable aerial performances. He was a check pilot for Civilian Pilot Training just before World War II . Although his flight career extended to his later years, his flamboyant lifestyle and penchant for the illegal was increasingly limited by rules and regulations of the Civil Aeronautics Administration. Rodgers coauthored an autobiography, Old Soggy No. 1 (1954), in which he preserves the uninhibited character of the first three decades of aviation and reveals his own uniqueness. Bootlegging and flying stunts made him famous among the aviators and law-enforcement officers within the range of Love Field in Dallas as well as later in the lower Rio Grande valley. He performed the aviation heroics attendant upon early flight, including such incidents as surviving a crash after the motor had fallen off, safely landing a fabric-covered aircraft with one side in flames, having the first pilot's license in Texas and being the first to have it revoked, and landing safely at night after being blinded by lighted fireworks mounted on his plane. After his second marriage, Rodgers bought a 400–500 acre ranch in Bandera and opened a steakhouse. He subsequently sold out and moved to McAllen, opened another steakhouse, and ran a fisherman's camp in nearby Zapata. Slats Rodgers died on July 5, 1956, in McAllen and was buried at Laurel Hills Cemetery in Mission.

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Johnson, Middleton T., Colonel; General Patrick R. Cleburne

1861

County named for Texas Confederate-- Colonel Middleton T. Johnson, 1810-1866 South Carolinian; Legislator Alabama came to Texas 1840. Member Republic of Texas Congress. Cavalryman in U.S. War with Mexico. Texas Ranger surveyor of early railroads. As colonel raised 14th Texas Cavalry regiment, taking them to Little Rock 1862 for induction C.S.A. service. Buried Mill Creek Cemetery, Arlington, Texas. Johnson County voted 500-50 for secession 1861. Soon raised 9 companies for C.S.A. service. 12th Texas Cavalry regt. which served in Arkansas, Louisiana, on Texas coast to prevent invasion Texas. Remaining eligible men western part county placed in state militia late 1863 to protect frontier. City named for Confederate-- General Patrick R. Cleburne 1828-1864 Born near Cork, Ireland came to U.S. 1849. Drug clerk in Ohio, became lawyer in Arkansas. Recruited 1st Arkansas Regt. for Confederacy. Elected colonel. Promoted brigadier general March 1862, made major general Dec. 1862. Rapidly earned reputation as a superb combat officer on numerous fields with army of Tennessee Eight. Texas regiments of Granbury's Brigade were under Cleburne, and in 1864 Atlanta campaign he said, "The piles of the (Union) dead were silent but sufficient eulogy upon Granbury and his noble Texans. "On Nov. 30, 1864 Cleburne, a savage fighter, met death six paces from the Federal lines in battle Franklin, Tenn. Became known as "Stonewall Jackson of the West." Erected by the State of Teas 1963.

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The Texas World War II Home Front

1941

World War II brought a shared sense of patriotism and purpose to the Texas home front as civilians benefited from new or expanded war industry jobs, such as petroleum, lumber, bomber manufacturing and farming. However, the large number of Texans seeking employment in larger cities or joining the military created an extreme labor shortage in many smaller communities. Across the state, groups worked to alleviate the labor crisis. Johnson County succeeded in June 1944 with the establishment of Camp Cleburne for German Prisoners of War (POWs) here, with the First State Bank of Rio Vista guarantying funds to the U.S. government for POW wages. By war’s end, Camp Cleburne––one of nearly 70 camps across the state housing more than 50,000 POWs––provided 120 Johnson County farms with necessary agricultural labor during the war. Prior to the war, National Guard units trained across Texas preparing for America’s eventual entry into the war. One such unit, Battery B., 132nd Field Artillery, 36th Infantry Division (I.D.) trained in Johnson County. In 1942, the 36th I.D. mobilized for overseas deployment and the patriotic Texas spirit shone brightly as the unit rolled through Cleburne in Feb. 1942 to the cheers of hundreds of Johnson County residents. By 1945, nearly 1.2 million troops trained at army posts, airfields and naval bases in Texas. Texans looked to volunteer civically while enduring shortages and inconveniences necessary to support the war effort. The Johnson County Draft Board and Rationing Board were housed in the county courthouse. In addition, local residents participated in civilian oriented programs, such as blackout and air raid drills, Civil Air Patrol, victory gardens, scrap drives, volunteering at USOs and working war bond drives. Texans responded in great numbers to their nation’s call and served both overseas and stateside in WWII. The resulting military buildup served as the catalyst toward the modernization and urbanization of Texas. Texas in World War II - 2010

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Carroll, John Lewis [Johnny]

1956

John Lewis (Johnny) Carroll, rockabilly guitarist, composer, and singer, was born in Cleburne, Texas, on October 23, 1937. He grew up in nearby Godley and spent much of his life on the family farm there. His surname was actually spelled Carrell, but the Decca label misspelled it as Carroll, and apparently Johnny used this spelling for the rest of his career. Carroll bought his first guitar at age nine with money he had earned by working as a water boy at a World War II POW camp. His mother, who played the fiddle, taught him basic music skills. By listening to the radio, he learned to play country music . Carroll later was introduced to rhythm and blues when a cousin in the jukebox business gave him some old 78 rpm records. In the early 1950s he performed on KCLE radio in Cleburne. By 1955 he had formed his own high school band, the Moonlighters. His group sometimes shared the stage with the South's newest singing sensation, Elvis Presley , as they performed on the Big D Jamboree and the Louisiana Hayride circuit. During a performance with Ferlin Husky, Carroll gained the attention of local radio operator Jack "Tiger" Goldman, who helped him get a contract with Decca Records. In 1956 Carroll recorded for Decca in Nashville. During this two-day recording session he was encouraged to sing in a dark and husky voice, a trademark he carried throughout his career. At the session he recorded his own "Crazy, Crazy Lovin'" along with "Hot Rock," written by Goldman. With moderate sales, Carroll embarked on a series of tours. In 1957 he starred in the motion picture Rock, Baby, Rock It! which was filmed in Dallas in 1956, and he performed several songs with his old high school band. Though panned by critics, the film later achieved cult status for its diverse and historic music performances. After a dispute with Goldman, Carroll left him and rejoined the Louisiana Hayride . He enlisted Ed McLemore , co-producer of Big D Jamboree , as his new manager in 1958 and recorded two singles for Warner Brothers, including his biggest hit, "Bandstand Doll." In 1962 he recorded his last single for more than ten years. Beginning in 1958 until the early 1970s, Carroll was music director for a series of nightclubs known as the Cellar . Originally opened in Fort Worth, the club also opened branches in other Texas cities. On May 6, 1960, Carroll married Sharon, a waitress at the Cellar. They had a son but divorced in 1966. He married Tena Mathews in 1968. In 1974, after leaving the nightclub business, Carroll returned to performing and recorded "Black Leather Rebel" (also titled "Gene Vincent Rock"), a tribute to singer and friend Gene Vincent. It was the first of several projects that reignited Carroll's career Three years later he re-released three of his Decca singles, the success of which led to several tours across Europe, where he was a rock-and-roll icon. In 1978 Carroll rekindled his 1950s rock-and-roll sound with the release of Texabilly , an album recorded on the Rollin' Rock label in Van Nuys, California, in a twenty-seven-hour marathon session. About this time he also teamed up with model and singer Judy Lindsey, and the two performed in clubs across the United States and in Europe. The city of Fort Worth proclaimed December 1, 1986, to be "Johnny Carroll Day" in honor of Carroll's success in Europe and his role as an ambassador of good will for the city. By the 1990s he had completed eleven European tours and was a popular draw on the American music festival circuit. He died of liver failure in Dallas on February 18, 1995, and was buried in Godley, Texas. Bear Family Records released Rock Baby Rock It: 1955-1960 , a compilation of Carroll's recordings, in 1996.

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Conway, Gordon

1915

Gordon Conway, artist, only child of John Catlett and Tommie (Johnson) Conway, was born at Cleburne, Texas, on December 18, 1894. Her father descended from colonial and revolutionary era patriots in Tidewater Virginia that included a collateral ancestral line from the mother of President James Madison. After the Civil War he moved to Texas, where he succeeded in business, became an active Episcopal layman, and served as mayor of Cleburne. Around 1900 the family moved to Dallas, where he expanded his chain of lumberyards, established lumber firms in Dallas and Fort Worth, and became a well-known civic and social leader before his death in 1906. His daughter, Gordon, the last of the family line, had no children from a seven-year marriage to businessman Blake Ozias that ended in divorce in France in 1927. Gordon Conway's mother also descended from early American leaders, including the Samuel Adams family of Massachusetts and Joseph Johnson, the first Virginia governor elected by a vote of the people. One Johnson line later moved to Texas and settled in Whitesboro, Paris, and Cleburne. Tommie Johnson Conway established the pattern of a glamorous, nomadic lifestyle that included sporadic educational efforts for Gordon at the National Cathedral School in Washington, D.C., a Lausanne girls' school, and brief art lessons in Rome. She was a champion of her daughter's career and her lifelong companion. During a brief but prolific twenty-two-year career (1915-37), Gordon Conway won international acclaim in the fields of commercial graphic art and costume design for stage and film in New York, London, and Paris. She made around 5,000 finished drawings, including illustrations for at least 26 publications and 33 advertising clients. With assignments ranging from one to 80 costumes per show, she designed graphics and costumes for at least 119 stage productions for both theater and cabaret. She costumed 47 films. Conway helped democratize Parisian haute couture and popularize the severe elements of modern design. Starting out during the golden age of American illustration, she was a self-taught, free-lance artist who worked without apprentices and models. A significant but often overlooked aspect of her career-and rare for women of the era-was Conway's ability to create a popular public persona, which expanded her network of clients. She was in the vanguard of the new business enterprises of advertising and public relations at the beginning of the twentieth century. She excelled in several genres best reviewed in two stages: her New York period (1915-20) and her European period (1921-36). Highlights of her New York period included silhouette art for mass print media and color billboards, posters, and promotional graphics touting Broadway theater and cabaret productions. She was a spirited and determined twenty-year-old in 1915 when she launched her career at Vogue and Vanity Fair . Recognizing her native talent, Heyworth Campbell-publisher Condé Nast's first art director-insisted that Conway forget academic art school. He urged her to take classes at the Art Students League and to study magazine and advertising illustration with tutors. Campbell joined another Conway mentor, Vanity Fair editor Frank Crowninshield, in helping her establish a popular public image. These editors also marshaled her innate flair for whimsy and parody by commissioning covers and narrative vignette pages spoofing New York society girls involved in World War I charity work. Also publishing Conway's drawings of bright young sophisticates was Condé Nast rival Harper's Bazaar , whose editor, Henry B. Sell, encouraged Conway's talent and introduced her to the art work of their new cover artist, Erté. These successes led to other publications and diverse advertising clients such as the Delage and the Franklin motor car companies, Huylers chocolates, Neiman-Marcus , and Hallmark watches. The National City Company (New York) commissioned a series of her posters for a natio

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Everything Near Cleburne

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

The Cleburne Demands
In the summer of 1886, two hundred and forty delegates of the Texas Farmers' Alliance gathered in Cleburne and issued a seventeen-point platform that became known as the Cleburne Demands. They called for regulating the…
Where a Hall of Famer Threw His First Pro Pitch
In 1906 Cleburne fielded a Texas League club called the Railroaders, named for the Santa Fe shops that paid the town's bills, and that team won the league championship in its only full season. Its lasting fame, though,…
The Courthouse That Burned the Day the Titanic Sank
The grand courthouse anchoring Cleburne's square has a haunting coincidence in its past. The county's previous building, an ornate Second Empire courthouse completed in 1883 by noted Texas architect W. C. Dodson, burned…
Dial Telephones, Years Ahead of the World
Here is a forgotten Texas first. Around 1903, a little company in Cleburne installed some of the earliest dial telephones in the entire country, machines that let people connect their own calls automatically, without an…
The Railroaders Ride Again
More than a century after the original club folded, professional baseball came back to Cleburne. The modern Cleburne Railroaders were announced as an expansion franchise in the independent American Association on…
The Black Powder Plant That Kept Going Off
Out at the edge of Cleburne sat a black powder manufacturing plant, the kind of operation that made the explosive used in fireworks, antique firearms and blasting. On July 10, 1973, a series of explosions tore through…
The Rockabilly Wildman Born in Cleburne
Cleburne's contribution to the birth of rock and roll was a guitar-slinging kid named Johnny Carroll, born here on October 23, 1937. His family name was actually Carrell, but when the Decca label misspelled it Carroll…
Johnson, Middleton T., Colonel; General Patrick R. Cleburne · Historical Marker
County named for Texas Confederate-- Colonel Middleton T. Johnson, 1810-1866 South Carolinian; Legislator Alabama came to Texas 1840. Member Republic of Texas Congress. Cavalryman in U.S. War with Mexico. Texas Ranger…
Cleburne Town Square · Historical Marker
You're cruising through Cleburne, and right here is the heart of it all: the town square. It all started back in 1854 with just a log cabin near a spring. By 1867, the county seat was moved here and renamed for…
Named for the Stonewall of the West · 0.1 mi
Cleburne began as an army camp called Camp Henderson, built around a dependable spring on West Buffalo Creek that had long watered travelers and the cattlemen driving herds up the nearby Chisholm Trail. In 1867, when…
A Burger Stand Since 1949 · 0.1 mi
On North Anglin Street in Cleburne stands a tiny walk-up burger joint that has been flipping burgers on the very same corner since 1949. It was opened by a woman named Ora Lanman, and for forty-three years, from 1962 to…
Pioneer Texas Telephones · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker
The first telephones in Texas, in 1878, connected the "Galveston News" with the home of its publisher, Col. A. H. Belo. Galveston also had the first exchange, 1879, and first long-distance line, which ran to Houston, in…

Show all 200 nearby places

The Boy Who Couldn't Pitch · 0.1 mi
In 1906 the original Cleburne Railroaders won the Texas League pennant, and on that roster was a teenager from nearby Hubbard named Tris Speaker. He had signed on as a pitcher, and he was terrible at it, losing his…
A Carnegie Library Full of Cleburne's Memory · 0.1 mi
On the downtown square at 201 North Caddo Street stands one of the last original Carnegie library buildings still in use in Texas, now home to the Layland Museum of History. The story behind it is pure small-town…
The Machine Shops That Rebuilt Steam Locomotives · 0.1 mi
Cleburne is a railroad town because of what got built here in 1898 and 1899: a sprawling Santa Fe maintenance complex that became one of the largest in the Southwest, big enough to build and rebuild steam locomotives…
Carnegie Library Building · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Cleburne Carnegie Library, a testament to community spirit and a touch of Gilded Age philanthropy. It all started in 1901 with local women's clubs pushing for a public library. They even met with…
Church of the Holy Comforter · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Cleburne, and right here is the Church of the Holy Comforter. Its story starts way back in 1860 when the first bishop of Texas visited Johnson County. This parish, the very first Episcopal one in…
City Wagon Yards · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past where Cleburne's City Wagon Yards once stood. Before cars and trucks, these were the bustling hubs for rural Texans coming into town. For just two bits, farmers and travelers could get feed and water…
Picnic Grounds · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Cleburne's original town square, a place that started as a simple picnic ground. After <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1854</say-as>, this spot became known as Camp Henderson, a…
Cleburne Lodge No. 315, A.F. & A.M. · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Cleburne, the county seat since 1867. Just two years later, in 1869, the Grand Lodge of Texas chartered Cleburne Masonic Lodge No. 315. The lodge built its hall in 1871 and has focused its…
Market Square · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're cruising through Cleburne, and right here is Market Square, a tradition that started way back in the 1890s! Eleven men decided they didn't want to wait for the county to fund it, so they donated this land forever…
City Spring · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Cleburne, and right here is City Spring, a place that was the lifeblood of this area for generations. Imagine people traveling miles, just to get a drink, to wash their clothes, or to haul water…
First Baptist Church Of Cleburne · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Cleburne, and right here is the site of the First Baptist Church, organized way back in 1868 by W. A. Mason with just 16 members. It grew fast. By 1869, they had their first pastor, J. R. Clarke,…
Little Old House · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Cleburne, and just ahead is the Little Old House. Built sometime between 1865 and 1870, this southern colonial cottage was close to a vital water source, City Spring. It was the first home of…
The Shops That Built the Town · 0.3 mi
In 1897 Cleburne beat out Dallas, Fort Worth, and Temple to land an enormous railroad repair complex for the Santa Fe line, said to be one of the largest such shops anywhere in the West. When it opened in 1898 it…
When the Rangers Came to Town · 0.3 mi
In 1922 the national railroads cut the wages of their shop workers, and all across the country the shopmen walked out. In Cleburne, a town of about thirteen thousand people built almost entirely around the Santa Fe…
John L. and Annie Upshaw Cleveland House · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Cleburne, and to your right stands a beautiful Queen Anne style home, built in 1892. This was the residence of John L. and Annie Upshaw Cleveland. John owned the local cottonseed oil mill and a…
Bethel Salter A.M.E. Church · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Bethel Salter A.M.E. Church, a testament to faith and community. It began in 1887, established by the Goodwin and Sims families, and named for Bishop Moses B. Salter. The church moved and…
Field Street Baptist Church · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Field Street Baptist Church in Cleburne. It began in the late 1800s as the West Side Mission, a Bible study group from Cleburne's First Baptist Church. The mission bought a lot on the…
Johnson County · 0.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the heart of Johnson County, a place named for Middleton T. Johnson, a legislator from Alabama who came to Texas in the 1840s. He was a veteran of the Texas Rangers, the Mexican War, and the Civil…
Joiner-Long House · 0.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Joiner-Long House in Cleburne, a home that saw major changes over a century. John Joiner built a simple farmhouse here in 1895. Then, in 1912, banker Joseph Long and his wife Lorena bought it.…
The City of Shops: Engineering an Iron Horse · 0.7 mi
Imagine a factory the size of a small city, dedicated to one thing: keeping steam locomotives running. That was Cleburne's Santa Fe Shops, a marvel of industrial engineering. When a massive steam locomotive needed a…
The General's Forbidden Idea · 0.7 mi
The man this town is named for, Patrick Cleburne, was a brilliant Confederate general. But his most famous moment wasn't on the battlefield; it was in a private meeting. By the winter of 1864, the Confederacy was losing…
The Night the Sky Roared · 0.7 mi
On the evening of May 15, 2013, the skies over Cleburne turned violent. A powerful supercell thunderstorm, part of a larger outbreak that produced sixteen confirmed tornadoes across north and east Texas, began to rotate…
Cleburne, TX · 0.7 mi
Founded as Camp Henderson in 1862 during the Civil War, the city that would become Cleburne was initially an army camp on Colonel W.F. Henderson's land near Buffalo Creek. It was named after Patrick R. Cleburne, a…
The Spirit of Cleburne · 0.8 mi
The Santa Fe shops in Cleburne were heavy engineering on a grand scale, where crews could take a steam locomotive completely apart and rebuild it: the boiler, the firebox, the tall driving wheels, all of it. The town's…
Pat Cleburne Camp No. 88, UCV · 0.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Cleburne, where the Pat Cleburne Camp number 88 of the United Confederate Veterans was formed in 1890. This group, made up of prominent local citizens, erected a memorial arch in 1922. The UCV held…
Yellow Jacket Stadium · 0.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Yellow Jacket Stadium, a testament to New Deal ingenuity. Back in 1939, Cleburne needed a new place for their high school football team, Rhome Field, to play. So, the Works Progress…
Johnson County Sheriff's Posse · 1.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Cleburne, where the Johnson County Sheriff's Posse got its start. On October 8th, 1951, nine men met at the Cleburne Livestock Auction barn with a mission: to promote goodwill, celebrate Western…
The Texas World War II Home Front · 1.4 mi · Historical Marker
World War II brought a shared sense of patriotism and purpose to the Texas home front as civilians benefited from new or expanded war industry jobs, such as petroleum, lumber, bomber manufacturing and farming. However,…
Carroll, John Lewis [Johnny] · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
John Lewis (Johnny) Carroll, rockabilly guitarist, composer, and singer, was born in Cleburne, Texas, on October 23, 1937. He grew up in nearby Godley and spent much of his life on the family farm there. His surname was…
Conway, Gordon · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
Gordon Conway, artist, only child of John Catlett and Tommie (Johnson) Conway, was born at Cleburne, Texas, on December 18, 1894. Her father descended from colonial and revolutionary era patriots in Tidewater Virginia…
Lewis, William T. · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through North Texas, and right here near Cleburne, a jazz legend got his start. William T. Lewis, born in 1905, grew up to become one of the first prominent Black jazz bandleaders in Europe. After honing…
Chambers, Barzillai J. · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving near Cleburne, Texas, a place that was once the heart of a political movement. Barzillai J. Chambers, a local politician and farmer, became a leading voice for the Greenback party in the late 1870s. He…
Ellis, Mary Heard · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Central Texas, and right here in Cleburne, Texas, Mary Heard Ellis was born in December of 1878. She was a teacher and a social reformer who became a key figure in the Texas woman suffrage…
Layland Museum · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Cleburne, and right here is a building with a story that's almost as old as Texas itself. This is the Layland Museum, housed in the magnificent 1905 Carnegie Library. It started in 1963 with a…
Cleburne, TX · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Cleburne, Texas, the county seat of Johnson County. This town owes its very existence to a crossroads and a water source on West Buffalo Creek, an important stop for travelers and cattlemen on the…
Crane, Edward E. · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through North Texas, and right here near Cleburne, Edward E. Crane was born. He became an attorney and a law professor, but his most significant contribution came when he served on the Board of Regents…
Curry, Arthur Ray · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through North Texas, and right here in Cleburne, Arthur Ray Curry got his start. He went on to become a key figure in expanding library access across the state. As supervisor of the WPA Statewide Library…
Dallas, Cleburne and Southwestern Railway · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Johnson County, maybe even near Cleburne, and you might be passing over the ghost of a railroad that once promised a direct link to Dallas. The Dallas, Cleburne and Southwestern Railway, nicknamed…
Lemmons, Reuel G. · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Cleburne, Texas, a place that was home to Reuel Lemmons for over a decade. From 1943 to 1955, Lemmons served as the minister for the Central Church of Christ right here. But his influence…
Odell, Willmot Mitchell · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving near Cleburne, the birthplace of Willmot Mitchell Odell, a man who wore many hats in Texas law and public service. Born in 1878, Odell practiced law here for years, even chairing the Johnson County…
Poindexter, William · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Johnson County, heading towards Cleburne. Right here, William Poindexter built a career. He was a lawyer, a prohibitionist, and even a bank president. Poindexter stumped for prohibition in 1887,…
Ramsey, William Franklin · 1.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Bell County, the birthplace of William Franklin Ramsey. He was a lawyer, a judge, and even a banker, graduating with his law degree way back in 1876. Ramsey practiced law in Cleburne, married…
Southwest Metroplex Baptist Association · 2.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Southwest Metroplex Baptist Association. Messengers from nine Baptist churches, Shady Grove # 1 and # 2, Alvarado, Bethesda, Rock Springs, Hillsboro, Island Grove, West Fork and Union met to organize…
Buchanan, TX · 2.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
Buchanan, five miles northwest of Cleburne in central Johnson County, was established in 1856 and selected as the second county seat in a special election held on October 4 of that year, after the discovery that the…
Lillian, TX · 2.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
Lillian is on Farm Road 2738 fifteen miles northeast of Cleburne in northeastern Johnson County. In 1902 G. J. Renfro purchased land from J. W. Cunningham to establish a town that would be near the line of the…
Hart, Richard Meredith · 2.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Johnson County, Texas, where Richard Meredith Hart settled in 1855. He was a tough cattleman who drove his herds overland to Shreveport and downriver to New Orleans. Hart built his home on Mustang…
Johnson County · 2.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Johnson County, right on the edge of the Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex. This land was once a hunting ground for various Native American tribes. In 1851, a Caddo-led uprising forced many early…
Shannon, William Russell · 2.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what was once Johnson County, Texas, a place that saw service from William Russell Shannon. He was a farmer and legislator who left his seat in the Texas House in 1861 to organize a cavalry unit…
Trinity and Brazos Valley Railway · 2.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what was once the heart of a new Texas railway, the Trinity and Brazos Valley. Chartered in 1902, this ambitious line aimed to connect Johnson County all the way to the Beaumont area. It started…
Bruce, Horatio Gates · 2.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Johnson County, Texas, where Horatio Gates Bruce settled in 1848. A Confederate officer and community leader, Bruce helped found the Rock Creek Baptist Church and served as captain in the…
Sand Flat, TX (Johnson County) · 2.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Johnson County, southeast of Cleburne. Right here is the area once known as Cuba, and before that, just Sand Flat. Settlers arrived in the late 1850s, and by 1868, the community had its own…
Sparks, William Fielder · 2.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Central Texas, perhaps near Cleburne, and right here is a man who saw some serious Texas history unfold. William Fielder Sparks fought at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, helping to win Texas…
Bono, TX · 2.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
Bono is on Farm Road 2331 a mile west of U.S. Highway 67 in southwestern Johnson County. The site was settled in the early 1870s with the arrival of the families of Calvin L. Jones and B. H. Williamson, who donated…
Pleasant Point, TX · 2.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
Pleasant Point was a small rural settlement in northeastern Johnson County fifteen miles northeast of Cleburne, the county seat, on Farm Road 2738. Originating with the construction of a gristmill and general…
The Health-Food Store the Whole Town Built Its Diet Around · 3.5 mi
If you want to taste what makes Keene different, stop at the Adventist Book Center and food store at 201 South Old Betsy Road. Seventh-day Adventists have long promoted a vegetarian diet, so in Keene that conviction…
Site of Wardville · 3.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Wardville, the very first county seat of Johnson County. Back in August of 1855, this spot was chosen and laid out on 80 acres donated by William O'Neal. It was named for Thomas William…
Lake Pat Cleburne · 3.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Lake Pat Cleburne, named for a famous Confederate general. This reservoir was built to supply Cleburne's water needs after a bond issue was approved in 1962. The lake, covering 2,000 acres, was…
The $49 Courthouse Made of Logs · 4.0 mi
At the Chisholm Trail Outdoor Museum, 101 Chisholm Trail on the south side of Cleburne, sits one of the most unassuming relics of frontier Texas government: a tiny log courthouse built in 1855, reputed to be the oldest…
Arnold, Oliver Perry · 4.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Cleburne, and just ahead is the site of a man who truly saw the West unfold. Oliver Perry Arnold arrived in Texas way back in 1847, trying his hand at livestock and running a store. He even spent…
The Adventist Colony of Keene · 4.6 mi
You're driving through a town that was founded as a kind of religious colony. In the 1890s the Seventh-day Adventist Church wanted a center for education in the Southwest. Leaders scouted locations, and this spot in…
A Laboratory for Longevity · 4.6 mi
The town of Keene is more than just a dot on the map; for medical researchers its whole way of life is a data point in the science of longevity. Keene grew up around a Seventh-day Adventist college and is still one of…
The Town Where the Weekend Runs Backward · 4.6 mi
Roll through Keene on a Saturday and you'll notice something off about a Texas town: a lot of it is closed. Roll through on a Sunday and it's open. That's because Keene grew up as a Seventh-day Adventist community, and…
The Living-Well City · 4.6 mi
If Keene feels a little different from other Texas towns, you are picking up on something real. Adventists bought land here in Johnson County in 1892 to found a school, and that school is now Southwestern Adventist…
The College That Brooms Built · 4.6 mi
In the early days of Keene, most students at the Adventist academy were poor, so the school built its answer into the curriculum: you worked your way through. Keene Industrial Academy was chartered in 1894, and by 1896…
Keene, TX · 4.6 mi
Keene, Texas, is situated on a regional watershed divide, with the northern and eastern sides of the city draining to Turkey Creek, which is part of the Trinity River watershed, and the southern and western sides…
The Town Built on Purpose in the Dead of Winter · 4.9 mi
Most Texas towns just happened. Keene was planned. In 1892 a committee of Seventh-day Adventists from the Dallas area went looking for land to build a school, settled on roughly 800 acres east of Cleburne, and paid…
How 45,000 Wyoming Dinosaur Bones Ended Up in Keene · 4.9 mi
Tucked into this small Adventist college town is one of the largest dinosaur fossil collections in the country. For about 25 years, Southwestern Adventist University has sent a summer crew to a private cattle ranch in…
The Morning West Hall Burned · 4.9 mi
On the cold early morning of January 2, 1944, fire tore through West Hall, the boys' dormitory on the campus of what was then Southwestern Junior College. By accounts of the night, a 16-year-old student named Reginald…
Mizpah Gate · 4.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Southwestern Adventist University in Keene, and you're looking at the Mizpah Gate. This isn't just any old entrance; it replaced a barbed wire fence that used to keep starving livestock out of…
Rodgers, Floyd H. [Slats] · 5.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
Floyd H. (Slats) Rodgers, aviation pioneer, was born in Tunnel Hill, Georgia, on March 7, 1889, the son of Charlie and Alice (Russell) Rodgers. He moved with the family to Keene, Texas, and after a brief education moved…
The First Airplane in Texas Limped Out of Keene · 5.0 mi
Around 1912 a speed-mad young man named Slats Rogers, born Floyd Rodgers in Georgia and raised here as a teenager, decided he was going to build an airplane. He started the work in Cleburne and finished it in Keene,…
From Elm Grove to Keene · 5.0 mi
The town you're rolling into started under a different name. The first settler in this part of Johnson County was Jeremiah Easterwood, who arrived around 1852 and put up a Methodist meeting house that doubled as a…
The Names That Still Run the Town · 5.0 mi
Walk the old part of Keene and you're walking through a roster of its founders. The first teacher in the Adventist school, in 1893, was Ella E. Evans, who taught the settlers' children before the academy even had a…
The Petrified-Wood Gate That Watches the Campus · 5.0 mi
At the south entrance to Southwestern Adventist University stands the Mizpah Gate, and it's worth a look because of what it's made of. Completed in June 1937 as a gift from that year's graduating class, the gate was…
Adventist Churches · 5.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Johnson County, and right here in Keene, you're passing through a town founded by faith. In 1893, a group of Seventh-day Adventists established this community, seeking a place to build their lives…
Keene, TX · 5.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Keene, Texas, a town with a unique origin story tied to faith and education. Back in 1894, the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists established a school here to train ministers. They built…
The Street Named for a Steam Engine Called Old Betsy · 5.1 mi
The main drag through Keene is Old Betsy Road, and there really was an Old Betsy. On December 20, 1902, a little steam engine by that name began running a roughly ten-mile route between Cleburne and the community of…
Site of Buchanan · 5.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Buchanan, Johnson County's second county seat. It was founded in December of 1856, named for the U.S. president-elect. A jail and clerk's office went up in 1858. But this town couldn't…
Why a Whole Town Roots for the Owls · 7.1 mi
Pull up to 909 South Broadway and you're at the beating heart of modern Joshua: the high school, home of the Fighting Owls in blue and white. School here goes back a long way; Joshua opened its first one-room…
Watts Chapel Methodist Church and Cemetery · 7.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Watts Chapel, named for Nathaniel Franklin Watts. He and his wife Rachel settled here in 1872, building a life and a farm that included a cotton gin. Their family grew, but tragically,…
Early Cattle Trade · 7.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Johnson County, where folks like Meredith Hart were feeding the Confederacy during the Civil War. Texas beef was a vital resource, supplying armies and civilians across the South. Imagine cowboys…
Hart, Meredith, House · 7.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Meredith Hart House, built way back in 1856. This wasn't just any pioneer home; it was built by a man who saw a lot of Texas history unfold. Meredith Hart was an Indian fighter, a cattleman, a…
Joshua, TX · 7.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Joshua, Texas, a town born from a railroad's decision. Right here, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway laid its tracks in 1881, bypassing the older community of Caddo Grove just two miles…
The Fire That Forged a Town · 7.8 mi
Imagine standing on the main street of Rio Vista in 1914. The town was a collection of wooden false-front buildings running on the cotton trade - a bank, a meat market, a blacksmith shop, a saloon, a general store, a…
Engineering a Railroad Town · 7.8 mi
The existence of Rio Vista in this exact spot is a railroad decision, and a blunt one. The community here was already old - Henry Briden built the first cabin in Johnson County near the Nolan River in 1849, and the…
The Tombstone With No Body · 7.8 mi
Philip Nolan was killed south of here in eighteen oh one, and where his body lies is unknown. So where did his tombstone come from? Nolan was a horse trader who ran wild mustangs out of Spanish Texas until Spanish…
Beef, Counterfeit Money, and a Prison Fever · 7.8 mi
One of the big cattlemen around Rio Vista sold beef to feed the Confederacy, and got paid in counterfeit money. Meredith Hart had fought for Texas independence in eighteen thirty six. He came to Johnson County in…
The Man Without a Country · 7.8 mi
One of the most famous short stories in American history shares its hero's name with a horse trader who died on the river below Rio Vista. In December eighteen sixty three, in the middle of the Civil War, The Atlantic…
A Town of Three Names · 7.8 mi
The town you're in today went through a couple of names before one stuck. Out here in the 1870s the settlement answered to Grange Hall, and also to Kimbell. Then in 1881 the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway finished…
Briden, Henry, Cabin · 7.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of a historic log cabin, built in 1849 by Henry Briden. Briden, a German immigrant who served as a Texas Ranger, came here with his wife Lucinda. They became the very first permanent white…
Menefee Reunion · 7.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of a gathering that's been happening for over a century! Since 1890, the heirs of colonists who first arrived in America way back in 1623 have been meeting. This branch of the family traces…
Rio Vista, TX · 7.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Johnson County, and right here, near Rio Vista, you're passing through the site of the first house ever built in this county! In July of 1849, Henry Briden and his bride Lucinda arrived with her…
Joshua, TX · 7.9 mi
Once a thriving town, Caddo Grove missed out on the railroad boom, leading to the rise of Joshua. The station, originally called 'Caddo Peak', was renamed 'Joshua' after the biblical figure. The town blossomed with the…
The Station the Railroad Named After a Bible Story · 7.9 mi
The town you're rolling through almost wasn't here, and the town that should have been is two miles west, gone. That was Caddo Grove, a thriving little settlement near the Chisholm Trail until the Gulf, Colorado and…
When the Whole Town Ran on Cotton and Corn · 7.9 mi
For its first half-century, Joshua lived and died by what the Santa Fe hauled out of town. The first store opened in 1882 under W. L. West, who doubled as the first postmaster, and the depot beside the tracks turned…
The First Mayor, the First Florist, and the Lodge They Left Behind · 7.9 mi
Joshua stayed an unincorporated farm town for the better part of 70 years before anyone pinned a government on it, and when the town finally organized as a city in the 1950s, the man holding the gavel was Theodore…
When an Electric Train Hummed Through Joshua Every Hour · 7.9 mi
Long before the highway, Joshua had something most small towns only dreamed of: a fast electric train that ran on the hour. On September 1, 1912, the Fort Worth Southern Traction Company opened its interurban line, an…
The Sandstone Lookout Above the Cattle Trail · 7.9 mi
A mile and a half northwest of town, a brown sandstone hill called Caddo Peak rises to about 1,065 feet, and its face is chiseled with inscriptions, some said to date back to 1836. This was a watching place. The Caddo…
How One Hard Cap of Rock Built the Town's Best Lookout · 7.9 mi
Caddo Peak and nearby Brushy Knob aren't mountains; they're survivors. Across most of this part of Johnson County the land rolls in low, gentle swells, but these two hills stand out sharply, Caddo Peak topping out near…
The Pioneer Graveyard on the Old Chisholm Trail · 7.9 mi
West of town, out at 6700 FM 1902 north of County Road 910, sits Caddo Cemetery, and it marks one of the few spots where you can still stand on the actual path of the Old Chisholm Trail near Joshua. The cattle road that…
Joshua's Own Ran With the Outlaws · 7.9 mi
Joshua is a small town, but it put a kid on the NASCAR circuit. Blake Mallory was born here in Joshua on March 2, 1980, and like a lot of Texas racers he came up the hard way, on dirt and asphalt long before anyone…
The Chicken-Fried-Steak Diner Locals Swear By · 7.9 mi
If you want to eat where Joshua actually eats, skip the chains and pull into D's Country Cafe at 115 Conveyor Drive. It's a small, family-run breakfast-and-lunch spot of the kind that holds a Texas town together, the…
Rio Vista · 7.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're passing through Rio Vista, a town born from the railroad. Founded in 1885, its Spanish name means 'River View,' and it certainly lived up to it, overlooking the Nolan River and Mustang Creek. By 1896, this…
Union Hill Presbyterian Church and Cemetery · 7.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Union Hill, a community that started in the early 1850s, becoming a cotton farming hub by the 1870s. In 1879, a Presbyterian congregation formed here, building this church in 1880. Just a couple…
Haley-Smith Cemetery · 7.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Haley-Smith Cemetery near Rio Vista. This is the final resting place for some of Johnson County's earliest Anglo settlers. Thomas Haley, a horse breeder and Civil War captain, bought land here as…
Lowell Smith Home · 8.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Lowell Smith Home in Rio Vista. Built in 1887 by John Wesley Smith, this house tells a story of resourcefulness. Smith, a Civil War veteran and banker who settled in Johnson County in 1868, used…
Rejected as Caddo Peak, renamed Joshua · 8.2 mi
The railroad tracks cutting through Joshua are the reason there is a Joshua. When the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe planned its line from Cleburne up to Fort Worth in 1881, surveyors walked this ground with transits and…
Joshua, TX · 8.2 mi
Joshua's development was significantly influenced by the arrival of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway in 1881, which bypassed Caddo Grove and led to the establishment of a station at the site of what would become…
The Joshua Name Game · 8.2 mi
What's in a name? In Joshua, it's a bit of a local mystery. The area's first community was Caddo Grove, two miles west of here — and it faded fast after the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway went around it in 1881 and…
Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Rio Vista (Rio Vista) · 8.3 mi
Rio Vista (Rio Vista, TX) placed on the 2A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Anthony Zepeda (7 HR); Slate Campbell (0.500 avg, 5 HR); Landon Jordan (4 HR); Boston Baker (3 HR).
Grange Hall Cemetery · 8.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Grange Hall Cemetery. Nolands River was an early Johnson County community, established in the late 1850s. A local club of the Grange, a farmers' fraternal organization, organized her in 1874, and…
Bethany Rest Cemetery · 8.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Bethany Rest Cemetery, a quiet reminder of Alvarado's early settlers. The land here was donated in 1903 by A.A. "Ben" Head and his wife, Sarah, for Bethany Church, originally called Head's Chapel. By…
Head, A. A. and Susanna · 8.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of a remarkable farm, built by Alanson Asbury and Susanna Head, known fondly as Uncle Ben and Aunt Sukie. Around 1877, they established their home here and transformed about 300 acres into a…
Methodism in Joshua · 8.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Joshua, Texas, a town that really got its start in 1881 when the railroad came through. But Methodists here were already gathering before that, worshiping in nearby Caddo Grove and Marystown. In…
Marystown Cemetery · 8.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Marystown Cemetery, a final resting place for many of Johnson County's earliest settlers. Families began moving into this area in the 1850s, drawn by the springs and trees near Quil Miller Creek.…
Greenbrier Baptist Church · 9.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through the old Greenbrier community, which was renamed Greenfield back in 1917. This area's history goes back to 1878, when 17 charter members founded the Greenbrier Baptist Church. For years, Baptists…
The Lake SW of Town Is a Flood Machine · 10.0 mi
The lake a couple of miles southwest of Alvarado is not just a fishing hole, it is a piece of watershed engineering. Alvarado Park Lake was created in 1966 by throwing a dam across Turkey Creek, and it was built to do…
Cross Timber, TX · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Johnson County, near the edge of the western Cross Timbers forest. Right here, a community called Cross Timbers sprang up around 1853. It was a bustling place by the late 1800s, with a post…
Chosen by math, not by pioneers · 10.1 mi
The very existence of Grandview in its current location is a lesson in 19th-century engineering and infrastructure. It started a mile north of here in the 1850s, when J. F. Scurlock opened a general store; a proper…
The Night Grandview Burned · 10.1 mi
Take a look at the brick buildings that line downtown Grandview. This town has rebuilt itself more than once. It moved, first — the Missouri, Kansas and Texas ran its track two miles off in 1882, and over the next year…
From Cow Pastures to Subdivisions · 10.3 mi
As you drive along Highway 171, you're seeing a story of massive change unfold in real time. For most of its history, Godley was a small, quiet town with a population that rarely topped 1,000 people. It was surrounded…
A Town Made by the Railroad · 10.3 mi
Look at the railroad tracks that cut through the heart of Godley. They are not just passing through, they are the reason the town is here. But it did not happen the way you would guess. In 1886 the Gulf, Colorado and…
Godley, TX · 10.3 mi
Established in 1886, the city was named after R. B. Godley, a Cleburne lumber merchant who donated land for a townsite and a right-of-way to the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway. By 1888, Godley had a gristmill,…
A lumber merchant's eight-acre gift · 10.3 mi
The existence of Godley is as much a deal as a survey line. When the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway came through Johnson County in the eighteen-eighties, engineers were plotting the gentlest possible grades to…
Site of Norman Springs & Norman Grove · 10.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Norman Springs, a place that once quenched the thirst of Caddo Indians and Texas pioneers. Back in 1849, William Balch claimed this land, and when he returned with his family in 1851,…
Johnson County Pioneers and Old Settlers Reunion · 10.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of a Texas tradition that started way back in 1892. A local farmer named John James had an idea for a reunion, but folks initially said no. Undeterred, James and some writer friends…
Alvarado Glenwood Cemetery · 10.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Alvarado's Glenwood Cemetery, a resting place born from two family plots. Back in the 1870s, the Campbell and Sansom families set aside land for their own cemeteries. The first recorded burial here…
Balch-Senterwood Cemetery · 10.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Balch-Senterwood Cemetery, a resting place with a somber beginning. It was established in 1856, right next to the Balch Cemetery, to serve the African American population. The story starts with a…
Massey's BBQ: Where a Family Brand Started · 10.7 mi
Right here in Alvarado is where Massey's BBQ began. The first one opened in 2018, started by Todd Massey and his son Dakota, with Todd's brother Terry Massey as the pitmaster. Terry was the real heart of the smoke.…
First Baptist Church of Godley · 10.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Godley, and right here is the site of the First Baptist Church. It started way back in the spring of 1878, not in town, but at the home of J. P. Vickers, about four miles away. Back then, it was…
Site of Alvarado School, Church and Union Building · 10.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Alvarado, and right here is the site of the very first union building in Johnson County, established way back in 1854. William Balch donated this land for a place that served as a school, a church…
Deputy Clifton Taylor Memorial Highway · 10.8 mi · Historical Marker
Honors Johnson County Sheriff's Deputy Clifton Leigh Taylor, killed in the line of duty April 23, 2011, while responding to a domestic disturbance near Venus, Texas. The honorary segment covers Interstate 35 West from…
The Dr. Strangelove Writer Was Born Here · 10.9 mi
One of the sharpest satirists of the nineteen sixties was born right here in this small North Texas cotton town. Terry Southern came into the world in Alvarado on the first of May, nineteen twenty-four, the son of a…
First Methodist Church · 10.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Alvarado's First Methodist Church. Services here started way back in 1851, in a hall built by the town's founder, William Balch. The first dedicated church building went up in 1866, but sadly, it…
Alvarado Masonic Lodge No. 314 A.F. & A.M. · 10.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Alvarado, and right here is the home of the Alvarado Masonic Lodge, chartered way back in 1869. These guys weren't just about fellowship; they were serious about education. Their first lodge…
When the Trains Turned Alvarado into a Boomtown · 11.0 mi
Alvarado is the oldest town in Johnson County, but the thing that really put it on the map was steel rail. In 1881 two railroads reached town in the same stretch of years, the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe and the…
The Rock Under Town That Rewrote Energy · 11.0 mi
Godley sits over the Barnett Shale, a black Mississippian-age rock roughly 350 million years old, buried about 6,500 to 8,500 feet down across the Fort Worth Basin. Johnson County is one of just four core counties of…
Alvarado · 11.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Alvarado, a town with roots stretching back to the late 1840s. It all started with David Mitchell's trading post, but it was William Balch who really shaped this place. Settling here in 1852,…
Outlaws Benjamin Bickerstaff and Josiah Thompson · 11.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving near Alvarado, where in 1869, a pair of outlaws met their end. Benjamin Bickerstaff, wanted for murder in Louisiana, and Josiah Thompson, a local businessman, had joined forces and were believed to be…
The Lumberman Who Bought a Town Onto the Map · 11.0 mi
Godley owes its name and its start to a railroad deal. In 1886, R.B. Godley, a lumber merchant from nearby Cleburne, donated an eight-acre tract for a townsite and another twenty acres as right-of-way to the Gulf,…
Collier, John C. · 11.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through North Texas, and right here in the area, John C. Collier, known as 'Marse' to his students, was building a legacy in education. He arrived in Texas in 1855, first teaching at Bosque Academy before…
Alvarado, TX · 11.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Alvarado, the oldest town in Johnson County! It all started in the winter of 1849 when William Balch staked a claim near an old Indian trail. Though his family left for a bit, they returned in…
Weaver, John Calvin · 11.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Johnson County, and right here in Alvarado, John Calvin Weaver was building a life. He wasn't just a doctor, but a businessman and a state representative. In 1870, he was elected to the Twelfth…
Godley School · 11.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Godley, Texas, where the schoolhouse you see has a story that stretches back further than the town itself. Even before the railroad arrived in 1886, the Godley Independent School District was…
Oakland Cemetery · 11.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Oakland Cemetery, established around 1866. It was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2007.
Myers Cemetery · 11.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Myers Cemetery near Alvarado, a place that holds stories of family, hardship, and even a shocking crime. Samuel Houston Myers and his wife Martha arrived here in 1851 with their six children.…
The First Baptist Church in the County, and the Graveyard Beside It · 11.3 mi
Out in the countryside between Burleson and Alvarado lies Bethesda, older than the town of Burleson itself and central to its founding family's story. The community traces to 1853, when pioneer farmer David R. Jackson…
Bethesda Community · 11.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past what used to be the heart of Bethesda, a community that started way back in 1853. Pioneer David R. Jackson donated land for a cemetery, where unmarked graves might even date to 1844! Just a few years…
Ezell-McLeroy Cotton Gin · 11.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Alvarado, where cotton was once king. Back in 1896, John Ezell saw the boom in Johnson County cotton and built a gin right here. It was a lifesaver for local farmers, processing bales for markets in…
First Baptist Church of Alvarado · 11.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the First Baptist Church of Alvarado. Settlers arrived in the 1850s, and Baptists here are thought to have met for years before officially forming their church on October 6, 1861. Their…
The Lake They Said Would Never Fill · 11.6 mi
Southwest of town, tucked into cedar-covered limestone hills, Cleburne State Park is a Depression-era handcraft project hiding in plain sight. A group of Cleburne businessmen bought a few hundred acres in 1934 and…
Wilkinson Family Cemetery · 11.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Johnson County, not far from Grandview. Look around and imagine the Wilkinson family, Henry and Sarah Ann, pulling their ox-drawn wagons into this area back in January of 1867. They'd left…
Philip Nolan's Last Stand · 11.7 mi
In the spring of eighteen oh one, a Spanish army rode a long way to find one Irish horse trader, and the trail ended somewhere near this stretch of the Nolan River. Philip Nolan, born in Belfast, had spent about a…
The 1877 Farmhouse That Became an Art Colony · 11.9 mi
At 405 West County Road 714 sits a homestead older than the town of Burleson's incorporation, now reborn as a place to make art. The centerpiece is the Russell-Boren house, built in 1877, four years before the railroad…
Prairie Springs Cemetery · 11.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Prairie Springs Cemetery, established way back in 1857. It was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2004.
Crossroads of the Prairies · 12.0 mi
Right now, you're in a place that was once one of the most important railroad junctions in Texas. Alvarado is the oldest town in Johnson County—staked out back in 1849 and incorporated in 1878—but what made it boom was…
Engineering a Crossroads · 12.0 mi
Alvarado didn't grow up around the railroad; the railroads came looking for Alvarado. William Balch staked his claim near an old Indian trail in the winter of 1849, and by the summer of 1854 about a hundred families…
Alvarado, TX · 12.0 mi
Alvarado, Texas, the oldest city in Johnson County, has a rich history tied to the Mexican-American War. The community's first sheriff, A. H. Onstoott, named Alvarado after a battle he fought in Alvarado, Veracruz,…
When Cowboys Drove the Prairie · 12.0 mi
Before the railroads, the biggest thing to move through this part of Texas was cattle. The Chisholm Trail, the great highway for longhorn drives, ran north through Johnson County a few miles west of here. From 1867 into…
Duke Cemetery · 12.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through the Willow Springs Community, near Alvarado. Look to your right for the Duke Cemetery. It began in 1870 when the Duke family buried their ten-year-old daughter, Zilla, on their farm. By 1879, Dr.…
Renfro, Henry Carty · 12.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
Henry Carty Renfro, Baptist minister, was born near Maryville, Blount County, Tennessee, on July 18, 1831, the son of Absalom C. and Levicy (Tipton) Renfro. The family moved to Rock Spring, Walker County, Georgia,…
Burleson, TX · 12.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Burleson, Texas, a town born from the iron horse. Back in 1881, the railroad was pushing south from Fort Worth, and a man named Grenville Dodge bought land for a new depot. The deal included a…
Marystown, TX · 12.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Johnson County, and right here was once the community of Marystown. It all started back in 1853 when the Reverend J. S. Wilshire and his family settled this fertile land along Quil Miller Creek.…
Carroll, James Milton · 12.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Burleson County, Texas, near where James Milton Carroll settled with his family in 1858. He was orphaned young, but went on to Baylor University, pastored churches across Texas, and founded San…
Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Godley (Godley) · 12.3 mi
Godley (Godley, TX) placed on the 4A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Tabor Anderson (0.485 avg).
What a Grand View · 12.3 mi
Grandview got its name from a single spoken sentence. In 1854, John Whitmire, son-in-law of early settler F. L. Kirtley, looked out across the high prairie here and exclaimed "What a Grand View!" The name stuck, written…
Grandview Cemetery and Original Grand View Town Site · 12.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Grandview Cemetery, the final resting place for the original Grand View town site. This place got its name in 1854 when John Whitmire looked around and declared, 'What a Grand View!' Just two years…
Cahill Methodist Church · 12.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Johnson County, near Alvarado. Look around, and you might imagine a community called Cahill, named for Nancy and Aquilla Cahill, who settled this land back in 1859. Decades later, in 1893, Sarah…
Baker, J. T., House · 12.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the J.T. Baker House in Blum. It started as a simple one-room cabin way back in the late 1800s. Before 1900, it grew with a couple of board-and-batten additions. Then, in 1900, John Thomas Baker…
Grandview High School — State Softball 2026 · 13.2 mi
Grandview High School in Grandview, Texas qualified for the 2026 UIL state softball championships, reaching the state tournament (final four) in Class three A, Division One.
UIL 3A Football State Champions — 2 titles · 13.2 mi
Grandview High School (Grandview, TX): Most recent: 42-35 over Pottsboro · 2019 3A Division 1 final.
The Town That Chased the Tracks · 13.2 mi
Grandview once stood about a mile north of where you are now. Then the railroad decided the town's future for it. In the early 1880s the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad, the line Texans called the Katy, laid its…
The Ground That Breathes · 13.2 mi
The rich black dirt around Grandview is a scientific marvel with a temper. This is the Blackland Prairie, and its signature soil, called Houston Black, is the official state soil of Texas. It is a vertisol: a clay so…
Grandview · 13.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Grandview, a town born from a beautiful vista. Settled in 1850 on land granted by Governor Pease, its early settlers hauled supplies by ox wagon all the way from Houston. A visitor once exclaimed,…
Grandview Masonic Lodge · 13.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Grandview, home to Johnson County's oldest continuously operating Masonic Lodge. Chartered in 1861, this lodge has met in several buildings, including one shared with the Methodist church. A fire…
Grandview, TX · 13.3 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Grandview, Texas, right where U.S. 81 and I-35W meet. This town owes its start to a general store opened by J. F. Scurlock back in the 1850s. By 1860, a townsite was laid out, and a two-story…
American Idol's Hometown · 13.5 mi
In 2002, a television show called 'American Idol' became a national phenomenon, and it put Burleson, Texas, on the map. The winner was a 20-year-old from right here named Kelly Clarkson. Before she was a global…
The Ghost of the Interurban · 13.5 mi
Imagine this: it's 1915, and you want to get from Burleson to Fort Worth. You don't take a car. You walk to a stop in the middle of town and board a sleek electric railcar. This was the Interurban. The Fort Worth…
The Electric Spine of the Prairie · 13.5 mi
In 1912, a remarkable piece of engineering cut through Burleson: the Interurban. This wasn't just a train; it was a high-speed electric railway. The Fort Worth Southern Traction Company built a 30-mile line from Fort…
Burleson, TX · 13.5 mi
Burleson's history is deeply intertwined with the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad, known as 'the Katy'. In 1880, the railroad needed a midway depot between Fort Worth and Alvarado, leading to the purchase of land from…
The President's Man from Burleson · 13.5 mi
Long before Burleson was known for pop stars, it produced a major figure in national politics. Robert B. Anderson was born here in 1910 and grew up in the world of cotton farms and small-town Texas life. After getting a…
The Heart of Old Town · 13.5 mi
The heart of Burleson wasn't a courthouse square, it was a railroad. When the Missouri-Kansas-Texas laid its line from Fort Worth toward Hillsboro in 1881, Grenville Dodge bought the land for the company and put a depot…
Emory Home · 13.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Emory Home in Grandview. Built in 1907 by John Samuel and Mary Elizabeth Emory, this two-story residence was a testament to John's success as a farmer and stockman. He was also a leading civic…
The Town Named From a Saloon · 13.7 mi
Burleson exists because of a railroad deal. In 1881 a railroad planned a line running from Fort Worth toward Hillsboro, and Reverend Henry Renfro sold his land for the right of way on one condition: that he be allowed…
The Interurban and the Night the Lights Came On · 13.7 mi
In 1912 an electric railway called the Interurban opened between Fort Worth and Cleburne, and Burleson was a stop on the line. On opening day, September first, the cars carried twelve hundred passengers. The line did…
Grandview Baseball — Randy Pistokache, District 18-3A Newcomer of the Year 2026 · 13.7 mi
Randy Pistokache, a freshman (#29) at Grandview High School (Grandview, TX — Johnson County), was named the District 18-3A Newcomer of the Year for the 2026 baseball season.
From Ice Cream to Coffins · 13.7 mi
In Old Town Burleson, parked beside the visitors center, sits a genuine piece of that vanished railway: Interurban express car number three thirty, built around 1902 and described by the city as the oldest rail car of…
Gathings College · 13.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Gathings College, founded around 1860 by Colonel James Gathings and his brother Philip. This school, which enrolled over 200 students, even had a military department that trained young…

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Cleburne, Texas

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The Rockabilly Wildman Born in Cleburne RoadyGoat

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The Courthouse That Burned the Day the Titanic Sank RoadyGoat

Dial Telephones, Years Ahead of the World RoadyGoat

Pioneer Texas Telephones

Rodgers, Floyd H. [Slats]

Johnson, Middleton T., Colonel; General Patrick R. Cleburne

The Texas World War II Home Front

Carroll, John Lewis [Johnny]

Conway, Gordon

Everything Near Cleburne

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