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Eagle Lake, Texas

Everything Eagle Lake is known for

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Songs About Eagle Lake

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Artists From Eagle Lake

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Darrel Appelt
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Rivers & Roads in Song near Eagle Lake

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Eagle Lake.

Texas Colorado River 6 songs Texas State Highway 71 2 songs US Route 90 9 songs Interstate 10 36 songs Brazos River 43 songs U.S. Route 59 9 songs

History of Eagle Lake

Two Sugar Barons, One Train, One Pistol RoadyGoat

The rice and goose country around Eagle Lake was once sugarcane country, and the two men who built that empire ended it with a murder. Captain William Dunovant, a one-armed Confederate veteran, planted thousands of acres of cane south of town and erected the Lakeside sugar mill, which could process around 1,000 tons of cane a day. To get the crop to market, a circle of Eagle Lake businessmen chartered the Cane Belt Railroad in 1898, with Dunovant as president and William T. Eldridge as vice president. The partnership soured into a bitter feud over money and control of the line. On August 11, 1902, Dunovant boarded a San Antonio and Aransas Pass train at nearby Simonton. Eldridge was already aboard, and he emptied his revolver into Dunovant, then beat him with the empty pistol. Dunovant, who had reportedly threatened Eldridge first, died. Eldridge was tried for murder in 1904, pleaded self-defense, and was acquitted, then went on to help build the city of Sugar Land. The cane is gone, but the railbed and the grudge are part of this town's bones. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Cane Belt Railroad history.)

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The Eagle Lake Editor Who Got a Dam Named for Him RoadyGoat

One of the most consequential people ever to live in this town arrived as a young lawyer in 1886. Joseph Jefferson Mansfield started Eagle Lake's first newspaper in 1888 and was elected its mayor in 1889, then served as county judge before winning a seat in Congress in 1916. There he eventually chaired the powerful House Committee on Rivers and Harbors, the body that decided which dams, ports, and waterways got federal money. In 1921 an illness left him paralyzed, and Mansfield spent the next 25 years working the floor of the U.S. Capitol from a wheelchair, never giving up his seat, which he held until his death in 1947. His signature fight was funding the big dam on the Colorado River upstream near Austin, originally called Marshall Ford Dam. In 1941 it was renamed Mansfield Dam in his honor, and it still holds back Lake Travis today. Not bad for a small-town prairie editor who learned politics in a town of a few hundred people. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Wikipedia.)

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Laguna del Aguila: The Lake That Named a Town RoadyGoat

The lake just east of where you're rolling gave this town its name long before there was a town. In 1821, two of Stephen F. Austin's scouts, William W. Little and James Beard, camped here and one of them shot an eagle over the water. They called it Laguna del Aguila, Spanish for lake of the eagle, and the name stuck to early Texas maps. There's an older story too, told as a Native American legend, in which a young woman made two suitors prove themselves by crossing the lake, climbing a tree, and bringing back a live eaglet. Whichever you prefer, the eagle came first. The settlement that grew up beside it was platted as a railroad station after Gamaliel Good and railway director DeWitt Clinton Harris planned a stop here; the rails reached Eagle Lake in 1859. The town finally incorporated in 1888 with Captain J.W. McCarty as its first mayor, a working prairie town wrapped around a lake named for a bird. (Source: Handbook of Texas.)

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Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge

1937

The Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge is seven miles northeast of Eagle Lake in eastern Colorado County. Attwater's prairie chicken, a subspecies of the heath hen named for Henry P. Attwater , was once one of the most abundant prairie residents of Texas and Louisiana. It inhabited eight million acres from the Coastal Plains to the Mississippi River. The bird's natural range now covers only 46,000 acres, and populations are scattered. The chicken was a popular game bird in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, and hunting parties occasionally killed 200 to 300 birds per trip. The prairie chicken became extinct in Louisiana in 1919, and its population in Texas dwindled badly. The state of Texas banned hunting of the bird in 1937, at which time its population was counted at 8,618; in 1967 the number of Attwater prairie chickens had fallen to 1,070, and the bird became an official endangered species. In the mid-1960s the Nature Conservancy of Texas and the World Wildlife Fund purchased 3,500 acres in Colorado County as a preserve for the bird. At that time, the prairie chicken population at the refuge was twenty-five; by the mid-1980s it had risen to more than 200. The United States government acquired the property in 1972 and made it a national wildlife refuge. Through additional land acquisition, the refuge grew to include 8,000 acres by 1990. The entire Attwater's prairie chicken population of Texas was reported at 900 in 1986 and at 456 in 1992. Additional measures to save the prairie chicken from extinction have included a captive breeding program initiated in 1992 by researchers at Texas A&M University, plans to lease thousands of additional acres of suitable land in Austin and Victoria counties, and efforts to encourage area farmers and ranchers to manage their land in ways that will encourage the chicken's survival. The Attwater Prairie Chicken Refuge is one of the few preserves managed specifically for an endangered species; controlled grazing and burning, strip row cropping, mowing, pest plant control, and predator control are among the management techniques used to improve the habitat. Visitors are permitted to observe the grounds from an automobile tour route and designated walking paths, but no picnicking facilities are provided, and no hunting, fishing, canoeing, or camping is allowed. Access to some areas is tightly controlled during the birds' mating season. Although the refuge is dedicated to the preservation of the Attwater's prairie chicken, many other birds and animals take advantage of the area. Birds common to the refuge include the white-tailed hawk, the roseate spoonbill, the white ibis, the tricolored heron, and the fulvous whistling duck. Other animals include white-tailed deer, armadillos, coyotes, the endangered Houston toad , water moccasins, and king snakes. More than 250 different flowering plants have also been identified within the refuge. See also PRAIRIE CHICKENS .

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Eagle Lake, TX

1821

Eagle Lake is on Highway 90A east of the Colorado River and fifty miles southwest of Houston in southeast Colorado County. The town is beside a lake of some 1,400 acres, also known as Eagle Lake. Below the lake is the Lower Lake. Both lakes are privately owned and are leased for hunting and fishing. As early as 1835, Gideon Lincecum studied the numerous fish in the lake and the fauna of the surrounding land; in 1990 snowy egrets, roseate spoonbills, great blue herons, white pelicans, coots, cormorants, and alligators were still common sights. North of the town is the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wild Life Refuge . Eagle Lake is marked on early Texas maps. The name was probably given in 1821 by William W. Little and James Beard , two of Austin's scouts, when one of them killed an eagle on the lake and called the water Laguna del Águila. On March 22, 1838, Patrick Reels was granted 13½ labores of land (2,391 acres) on the shores of the lake, adjoining land grants owned by A. L. McLain and James McNair . In 1848 this grant was patented to the heirs of P. Reels by the state. In 1856 Gamaliel Good purchased most of the land from the heirs of Patrick Reels. It was divided among Good and his sons. Good subsequently deeded half interest in 600 acres to DeWitt Clinton Harris , a director of the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway. Together they planned the town to be a station on a new railroad between Harrisburg and Austin. The rails reached Eagle Lake in 1859. Later the Southern Pacific, the Cane Belt, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass, and the Santa Fe railroads all made Eagle Lake accessible for shipment of crops and, later, of gravel. In 1888 the town was incorporated, and Capt. J. W. McCarty was elected the first mayor. After the Civil War , Capt. William Dunovant started raising sugarcane and built a sugar mill at Lakeside, on the eastern shore of the lake. In 1913 the mill was sold and moved to Jamaica. Dunovant also introduced the cultivation of rice irrigated by lake water in 1896. John Linderholm of Chesterville expanded the rice industry, irrigated by wells, to the prairie north of Eagle Lake. Rice mills were also established in Eagle Lake. In the 1980s the mills were gone, though rice culture was still one of the major local industries. Huge sand and gravel deposits were mined west of the lake, leaving stretches of water for fishing and waterskiing and bringing the manufacture of concrete products to Eagle Lake. Numerous bones of ancient animals were found in the gravel mines. Production of both oil and natural gas in the area also contributed to the economy. In the 1960s Eagle Lake became a recreational center for hunting geese and ducks that wintered on the prairies in the rice stubble and around the lake. In the 1980s the planting and harvesting of hundreds of acres of wildflowers brought new interest to Eagle Lake. In 1990 the population of the town was 3,551. In 2000 it was 3,664.

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Henry, Eugene Herbert, Sr.

1929

Eugene Herbert Henry, Sr., educator and namesake for the African-American high school in Eagle Lake, Texas, was born on November 15, 1894, in Flatonia, Fayette County, Texas, to James Henry II and Eliza Mountain Henry. Eugene had ten siblings. Eugene Henry attended the public schools in Armstrong Colony, a freedmen's settlement in Fayette County, eight miles west of Flatonia. He and his brothers and sisters were required by their family to perform many chores, so they took turns attending school. As a result, Eugene was twenty-one years old when he graduated from the eighth grade. However, he distinguished himself as an honors student. In 1915 he took an examination for teachers conducted by the county school board and was certified to teach, although he did not begin teaching at that time. In 1917 Henry began college at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College (now Prairie View A&M University), where he earned a B. A. degree. While an undergraduate there, he worked for fifteen cents an hour to pay his college expenses. Upon graduation, he was awarded a scholarship by the YMCA to attend graduate school at Howard University in Washington, D.C. During World War I , Henry served as a second lieutenant in the United States Army. In August 1921 Eugene Henry married Mamie Althea Jackson. They had met at Prairie View. The couple had six children, five of whom (three sons and two daughters) survived to adulthood. Their marriage lasted until Henry's death more than sixty-two years later. Henry began his teaching career in the Waelder Community in Gonzales County, where he taught all subjects for grades one through eight. Then he taught in Fort Bend County. Later he taught school and became the principal of the school for Blacks in Eagle Lake in Colorado County and served there for more than a quarter century. Over the years, Eagle Lake has produced a number of outstanding African-American artisans, musicians, athletes, politicians, law officers, educators, religious leaders, and business people, beginning in the mid-nineteenth century. The Black schools in Colorado County have produced students who went on to later earn Ph.D.s and become lawyers, engineers, and registered nurses; they also have produced a graduate who became a college president and one who became an assistant superintendent of schools. By 1917 a number of Black school teachers were employed in Eagle Lake's Black school. In 1929 Professor Henry applied to the Julius Rosenwald Foundation for a grant to build a new school for Blacks in Eagle Lake ( see ROSENWALD SCHOOLS ). The following year, the Rosenwald Foundation awarded Eagle Lake $7,000 for construction of the school. Henry then helped raise money for the three and a half acres of land on which to build the school. Encouraged by Professor Henry, community leaders and parents of students sold pies, cakes, ice cream, and eggs to raise money for the land. Henry also asked Black business owners for donations and took up special collections from local churches as well. Within six months, the required $1,365 for the land was raised. The Department of Education in Austin was very instrumental in the naming of Eagle Lake's new Black school for its energetic and optimistic principal. Henry never gave a student a grade of 100. In explanation, he once said, "No matter if a student gets every problem correct, no one is perfect in anything he does." The E. H. Henry High School continued to serve the community until Eagle Lake schools were racially integrated. After that, the building became the Eagle Lake Primary School. In 1952 Henry contacted Senator Lyndon Baines Johnson in an effort to secure jobs for his students; his effort was successful. In 1976 Henry was able to obtain bus transportation for disabled senior citizens in Wharton County. Henry was a faithful member of the Elm Grove Baptist Church. He was a Thirty-third degree Mason, a member of the Knights of Pythias , and commander of Camp No. 132 of Woodmen of th

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Rice Culture in Colorado County

1898

The rice industry did not spread into the coastal plains region west of Houston until the very end of the 19th century. In 1898, Captain William Dunovant (1845-1902), a local plantation owner and entrepreneur, planted 40 acres of rice at the southeast corner of Eagle Lake (2.5 miles south) as an experiment, using convict labor from a nearby prison farm to construct levees and harvest the new crop. The small tract produced such encouraging results that in 1899 Dunovant built a pumping plant on the lake and irrigated 250-300 acres. The second venture proved so successful that over 30,000 acres of rice were under cultivation in the Colorado River Valley in 1900, and over 56,000 acres in 1901, mostly in Colorado County. Rice quickly replaced cotton and sugar cane as the primary cash crop in Colorado County. That the crop had a widespread economic impact was reflected in the increase in property values, the influx of new families, the reclamation of abandoned croplands, the rise in new railroad construction, and the rapid development of allied service industries, such as rice mills and irrigation and canal companies. Rice and the culture it supports continue to be a major economic factor in Colorado County.

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E. H. Henry Rosenwald School

1929

Before a school existed in Eagle Lake, African Americans were educated at home or in small churches, with some classes held in a local blacksmith shop. The first school for African-American children was located on Main Street in a room on the first floor of the old United Brotherhood of Friendship Hall. The school was later relocated to C Street. In the late 1920s, a visionary young professor, Eugene H. Henry (b. 1896), came to Eagle Lake to teach. Born in Flatonia, Henry was educated at Prairie View State Normal and Industrial College, received a scholarship to Howard University and served in the U.S. Army during World War I. Henry, along with others, saw the need for an African-American school in Eagle Lake. Beginning in 1917, Julius Rosenwald, president of Sears Roebuck Company, began to provide matching funds for African-American schools in the South. In 1929, Eugene Henry and his supporters sought an application for a Rosenwald grant for Eagle Lake. Parents, children, churches, businesses in the black community and others responded with fundraisers and contributions. With these contributions, three and a half acres were purchased and construction of the school began in 1930 when the Rosenwald grant was received. The school was a center for African-American activities, cultural programs, sports and events. When public schools integrated in the 1960s, the school became the Eagle Lake Middle School until a new middle school was built. The E. H. Henry High School was the only Rosenwald school in Colorado County and was a symbol of vision and progress for the community and the nation during the early 1900s.(2012)

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Masonic Cemetery

1867

In 1880, the Eagle Lake Masonic Lodge No. 366, established in 1872, purchased this burial ground. Also known as Eagle Lake Masonic Cemetery, the earliest known burial here occurred in 1867. Others buried here include Eagle Lake Mayor and U.S. Representative Joseph Jefferson Mansfield; Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) Patricia Braun O'Bannon; and the namesake of Oldham County, Williamson Simpson Oldham (d. 1868), who is among those reinterred. Cemetery features include curbing, monuments, masonic gravestones, grave slabs and obelisks. A Ladies Cemetery Association cared for the burial ground early in its history; today, the Eagle Lake Masonic Cemetery LLC maintains this historic cemetery.

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Everything Near Eagle Lake

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

  • Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge · Tsha Handbook

    The Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge is seven miles northeast of Eagle Lake in eastern Colorado County. Attwater's prairie chicken, a subspecies of the heath hen named for Henry P. Attwater , was once…

  • Eagle Lake, TX · Tsha Handbook

    Eagle Lake is on Highway 90A east of the Colorado River and fifty miles southwest of Houston in southeast Colorado County. The town is beside a lake of some 1,400 acres, also known as Eagle Lake. Below the lake is the…

  • Henry, Eugene Herbert, Sr. · Tsha Handbook

    Eugene Herbert Henry, Sr., educator and namesake for the African-American high school in Eagle Lake, Texas, was born on November 15, 1894, in Flatonia, Fayette County, Texas, to James Henry II and Eliza Mountain Henry.…

  • McNeill, Henry Cameron · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, not far from Eagle Lake, where Henry Cameron McNeill made his home after the Civil War. But before that, McNeill was a rising star. A West Point graduate in 1857, he served in the…

  • Anderson, Thomas Scott · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, and right here in Eagle Lake, T. Scott Anderson ended his days. Anderson was a lawyer and politician who served as Texas Secretary of State in the late 1850s. When the Civil War…

  • Cane Belt Railroad · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the heart of Texas sugarcane country, and right here is where the Cane Belt Railroad got its start. Chartered in Eagle Lake back in 1898, this railroad was built to haul the region's bountiful…

  • Mansfield, Joseph Jefferson · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, and right here in Eagle Lake, a remarkable man named Joseph Jefferson Mansfield made his mark. He arrived in Texas back in 1881, working his way up from farming and railroads to…

  • Whitley, John W. · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through central Texas, and right here, in Eagle Lake, a remarkable artist got his start. John W. Whitley, born in 1888, overcame humble beginnings to become a master art restorer. After studying at…

  • Two suitors, a lake, an eagle · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, near the town of Eagle Lake. This community's namesake, Eagle Lake itself, owes its name to a local Indian legend. The story goes that a young girl had to choose between two…

  • Eagle Lake · Tsha Handbook

    Eagle Lake, off-channel from the Colorado River near the town of Eagle Lake in eastern Colorado County (at 29°34' N, 96°20' W), is supposed to have been named from an Indian legend of a young girl who chose between two…

  • Two Sugar Barons, One Train, One Pistol · 0.2 mi

    The rice and goose country around Eagle Lake was once sugarcane country, and the two men who built that empire ended it with a murder. Captain William Dunovant, a one-armed Confederate veteran, planted thousands of…

  • The Eagle Lake Editor Who Got a Dam Named for Him · 0.2 mi

    One of the most consequential people ever to live in this town arrived as a young lawyer in 1886. Joseph Jefferson Mansfield started Eagle Lake's first newspaper in 1888 and was elected its mayor in 1889, then served as…

Show all 200 nearby places
  • Laguna del Aguila: The Lake That Named a Town · 0.2 mi

    The lake just east of where you're rolling gave this town its name long before there was a town. In 1821, two of Stephen F. Austin's scouts, William W. Little and James Beard, camped here and one of them shot an eagle…

  • From Eagle Lake to the Front Page of YouTube · 0.2 mi

    Eagle Lake's most-watched modern export grew up on these prairie roads. Ryan Trahan, born in 1998, spent his childhood here and graduated as valedictorian from Rice High School over in nearby Altair, the consolidated…

  • One of the Last Pieces of Coastal Prairie · 0.2 mi

    Six or seven miles northeast of town lies something genuinely rare: a surviving scrap of the coastal tallgrass prairie that once blanketed the Texas coast. The Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge,…

  • The Big-Leaguer Born in Eagle Lake · 0.2 mi

    Major-league baseball has a small but real Eagle Lake connection: outfielder Howard Chumney Fitzgerald, known as Howie, was born right here on May 16, 1902. He worked his way up through the minors and reached the big…

  • The Whole Town's Attic on Main Street · 0.2 mi

    If you want the long version of everything this stretch of prairie has been, the Prairie Edge Museum at 408 East Main Street is the place to find it. Opened in 1983 in a former auto dealership and repair shop, and named…

  • The Goose Hunting Capital and Its 1912 Hotel · 0.3 mi

    Eagle Lake bills itself as the Goose Hunting Capital of the World, and the title isn't just a chamber-of-commerce slogan. Every winter the surrounding prairie and flooded rice fields draw enormous flocks down the…

  • Rice Culture in Colorado County · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker

    The rice industry did not spread into the coastal plains region west of Houston until the very end of the 19th century. In 1898, Captain William Dunovant (1845-1902), a local plantation owner and entrepreneur, planted…

  • E. H. Henry Rosenwald School · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker

    Before a school existed in Eagle Lake, African Americans were educated at home or in small churches, with some classes held in a local blacksmith shop. The first school for African-American children was located on Main…

  • Eagle Lake · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising past Eagle Lake, a town with a name that tells a story. Back in 1821, Stephen F. Austin's exploring party spotted an eagle right here on this lake. Fast forward to 1851, and Gamaliel Good set up a…

  • Hotel Dallas, 1912 · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're rolling through Eagle Lake, and right here on this corner, you're passing the site of the old Hotel Dallas. It started back in the 1850s as the Good Hotel, a crucial stop for stagecoaches and trains in a town…

  • Methodism in Eagle Lake · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Methodism's beginnings in Eagle Lake. It all started in 1864, not with a church, but with a schoolhouse, founded by Emma Tracy Rhine. That humble schoolhouse became the first church…

  • Engineering the Prairie: How Canals Made Rice King · 0.5 mi

    The transformation of Eagle Lake from cattle country to rice country is a story of agricultural science and large-scale engineering. The challenge was the soil: a dense clay hardpan that would not let water drain. For…

  • The Downtown Shootout of 'Sug' Menefee · 0.5 mi

    Downtown Eagle Lake has a story that sounds straight out of a film noir. It centers on H.L. 'Sug' Menefee, a wealthy, powerful, and controversial rice farmer. In 1949, Menefee was a major figure in town, but he had…

  • Eagle Lake, TX · 0.5 mi

    Eagle Lake is more than just a blip on the map between Houston and Columbus. It’s a place where the quiet coastal prairie hums with a history you might not expect. The stillness you feel driving in, the vastness of the…

  • The Goose Hunting Capital of the World · 0.5 mi

    As you drive through the flatlands around Eagle Lake, you're seeing the foundation of its claim as the 'Goose Hunting Capital of the World.' For decades, this area has been a critical wintering ground on the Central…

  • Last Stand of the Prairie Chicken · 0.5 mi

    Just northeast of Eagle Lake, about six miles out on FM 3013, lies a landscape that is one of the last of its kind: the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge, better than ten thousand acres of it. This…

  • Masonic Cemetery · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker

    In 1880, the Eagle Lake Masonic Lodge No. 366, established in 1872, purchased this burial ground. Also known as Eagle Lake Masonic Cemetery, the earliest known burial here occurred in 1867. Others buried here include…

  • The Lake Itself, and a Million Wings · 0.6 mi

    The body of water this town is named for is a genuine natural lake, an oxbow of roughly 1,400 acres lying off-channel from the Colorado River, and it's often cited as one of the largest natural lakes in Texas. The…

  • How a River Builds a Lake and Walks Away · 0.6 mi

    Here's the quiet bit of science under your wheels: Eagle Lake is an oxbow, and an oxbow is a lake a river makes by accident. On a flat coastal floodplain like this one, the Colorado River doesn't run straight, it…

  • Lakeside Sugar Refinery · 1.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a sugar-making giant! Back in 1898, local leaders like William Dunovant built the Cane Belt Railroad to haul sugarcane to a mill. That railroad did so well, it was bought by the Santa Fe.…

  • Navigation of the Colorado River · 3.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving along the Colorado River, and you might be wondering how folks got around in early Texas. Overland travel was tough, so people looked to the rivers. From 1829 until the Civil War, Texans tried to use this…

  • Montgomery-Thatcher Cemetery · 5.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Montgomery-Thatcher Cemetery, a final resting place for families who lived through some of Texas's most turbulent times. James S. Montgomery, a War of 1812 veteran, and George W. Thatcher were…

  • The Booming Bird Brought Back From Almost Nothing · 6.0 mi

    Southwest of Sealy, out toward Eagle Lake, sits the Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge, one of the last big pieces of the native coastal prairie that once stretched across the Gulf Coast. It protects one…

  • Lissie United Methodist Church · 6.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Lissie, and right here is the Lissie United Methodist Church. <break time="400ms"/> It started way back in 1906 as the Evangelical Association, with just nineteen members. <break time="400ms"/>…

  • Frazarville · 6.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Frazarville, a community founded in 1857 by Dr. Isaac James Frazar and his father. They moved here from Bexar County, escaping locusts and Comanche raids. Dr. Frazar's son, James Azariah,…

  • The Airplane That Came Apart Over These Fields · 7.0 mi

    On the morning of September eleventh, 1991, Continental Express Flight 2574 was letting down toward Houston with fourteen people aboard when it came apart in the air about seven miles southeast of Eagle Lake. It was an…

  • Ten Feet of Clay · 7.6 mi

    Altair, Texas took its name from a star in eighteen ninety, and for a century nothing happened here a geologist would have noticed. Then came a permit. A company asked the state for permission to bury hazardous waste on…

  • The Average That Decided a Landfill · 7.6 mi

    Here is a piece of statistics that helped decide what could be buried in the ground near Altair, Texas. The state rule for a hazardous waste landfill over an aquifer is a number. You need at least ten feet of material…

  • Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Rice Consolidated (Altair) · 7.9 mi

    Rice Consolidated (Altair, TX) placed on the 3A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Glenn Mills (0.474 avg, 3 HR).

  • Chesterville Cemetery · 8.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Chesterville Cemetery, a quiet resting place with roots in a big land promotion. Back in 1894, John Linderholm bought up over 60,000 acres in this area for development. The Chester and Kellison…

  • Tait Compound · 8.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Tait Compound, a place built by the hands of enslaved people. Charles William Tait, a doctor and former naval officer, arrived in Texas in 1844. He surveyed land and started the massive Sylvania…

  • Alley Cemetery · 9.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Alley Cemetery. The Alley Cemetery, also known as the Glaiser Cemetery and Alley Family Cemetery, is the final resting place for some of the first Anglo settlers of Texas. The cemetery was not…

  • Garwood · 10.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Garwood, a town born from a big idea in rice farming. The land here was first acquired way back in 1827 by Preston Gilbert, one of Stephen F. Austin's original colonists. But it wasn't until 1896…

  • Borden, Gail, Jr. · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, and right here is Borden, named for Gail Borden Jr. You might know his name from the milk carton, but his invention of condensed milk started right here in Texas. After years of…

  • Menefee, William · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what is now Colorado County, and right here is where William Menefee settled his family in 1830. This lawyer and public official was a key player in early Texas. He represented his district at the…

  • Nagel, Charles · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, and right here in Bernardo, Texas, Charles Nagel was born on August 9, 1849. He grew up in a family that opposed slavery and secession, even moving to Mexico during the Civil War.…

  • Slave Insurrections · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Texas, and you might not realize it, but this land has a history of fear and suspicion. During the years leading up to the Civil War, and even after, Texans lived with a constant dread of slave…

  • Zimmerscheidt, Margaretha Bastian [Margaret] · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, near the community that still bears her name. Right here, Margaret Zimmerscheidt made a courageous choice in 1848. In a time when Texas law gave husbands the right to physically…

  • Breeding, Benjamin Wilkens · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once the heart of the Texas Revolution, and right here, Benjamin Wilkens Breeding was part of the action. In 1836, he fought Santa Anna's troops at the San Felipe ferry. Later, he and a…

  • Brotherton, Robert · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once the Colorado District, a frontier land where settlers like Robert Brotherton arrived in 1822. Just weeks after arriving from Missouri, Brotherton was wounded in the back during a…

  • Caney Creek (Wharton County) · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, near where Caney Creek flows. This waterway, originally choked with dense cane, was once a strategic point during the Civil War. In early 1864, Confederate commander John Bankhead…

  • Heard, William Jones Elliott · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the heart of Texas history, and right here, you're passing through the area where William J. E. Heard first settled. He arrived in Texana back in December of 1830, part of an Alabama colony…

  • Alleyton, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Alleyton is on the east bank of the Colorado River and Farm Road 102 between Interstate Highway 10 and the main line of the Southern Pacific Railroad, three miles east of Columbus in central Colorado County. The area,…

  • Borden, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Borden is between Interstate Highway 10/U.S. Highway 90 and the Southern Pacific Railroad, four miles northeast of Weimar in southwestern Colorado County. Before the Civil War the area was known as Harvey's Creek…

  • Colorado County · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, a place that's seen human history for about 12,000 years! Imagine French explorers, lost and looking for Fort St. Louis, camping right here on Skull Creek back in 1687. Later,…

  • Cook, James · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what is now Colorado County, near the site of future Matagorda. Right here, James Cook, one of Stephen F. Austin's original colonists, was granted land in 1824. He was a farmer and stock raiser,…

  • Farmers' Home Improvement Society · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, and right here, in Oakland, a powerful organization was born. In 1890, Robert Lloyd Smith founded the Farmers' Home Improvement Society. This wasn't just about farming; it was a…

  • Ijams, Basil Gaither · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, and right here is where Basil Gaither Ijams made his mark. He arrived in Texas in 1835, just in time to join Stephen F. Austin's army and fight in the Texas Revolution. He even…

  • Leyendecker, Johann Friedrich · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, and right here in Frelsburg is where Johann Friedrich Leyendecker made his mark. Born in Germany, he came to Texas as a boy and eventually served in the Civil War. But after the…

  • Matthews, John · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once Matthews Prairie, in Colorado County. Right here, John Matthews built a plantation that became a small community. Arriving in Texas around the Revolution, he settled on the east side…

  • Buescher, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Buescher was on the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway from Alleyton to Smith Point, four miles north of Columbus in Colorado County. The area surrounding Buescher included lands originally granted to James…

  • Frelsburg, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Frelsburg (Frelsburgh) is at the intersection of Farm roads 109 and 1291 in the northern corner of Colorado County. The community was founded around 1837 by Capt. William Frels and his brother John, who immigrated to…

  • Osage, TX (Colorado County) · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Osage is on the north and middle forks of Harvey Creek, four miles northeast of Weimar in northwest Colorado County. Much of the land was originally included in grants to Henry Austin , a cousin of Stephen F. Austin .…

  • Pieper, Peter · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Peter Pieper, an early land promoter in Frelsburg, Colorado County, Texas, son of Casper Pieper, was born about 1793, probably in Münster, Westphalia. He was a brickmason by trade and immigrated to Texas in 1833. He was…

  • Provident City, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Provident City was a land promotional endeavor located between Goldenrod and Sandy creeks near the southern tip of Colorado County. It was founded in 1909 on lands owned by the Provident Land Company of Kansas City and…

  • Shaws Bend, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Shaws Bend is on Farm Road 1890 in a bend of the Colorado River five miles northwest of Columbus in north central Colorado County. The settlement was named for Josiah Shaw, who, with his wife, Delinda Fitzgerald Shaw,…

  • Boggy Creek (Colorado County) · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving near Boggy Creek in Colorado County. This spot got its name in 1887 when the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad built a turntable here. The area was so swampy, they called it Boggy Tank, and the name…

  • Hermann University · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once Colorado County, near Frelsburg. Back in the days of the Republic of Texas, in 1844, ambitious plans were laid for Hermann University. Chartered by Congress, it was meant to be a…

  • Shaw, Josiah · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, not far from Columbus, and right here is the area known as Shaws Bend. This was the site of a large plantation established by Josiah Shaw in the late 1850s. Shaw, a planter and…

  • West Sandy Creek (Colorado County) · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Colorado County, near Weimar, and the landscape around you is dominated by the "post oaks." This dense woodland, with its deep, sandy soil, is home to the West Sandy Creek system. It's not just a…

  • Bernardo, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Bernardo is at the intersection of Farm Road 949 and Bernardo Road, on the south bank of the San Bernard River twelve miles northeast of Columbus in Colorado County. The earliest settlers were German immigrants who came…

  • Cheetham, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Cheetham was on U.S. Highway 90A and the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway a mile east of Sheridan and twenty miles southwest of Columbus in west central Colorado County. The community was founded during the late…

  • Chesterville, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Chesterville is near the point where Farm Road 1093 crosses the Colorado-Wharton county line in southeastern Colorado County. The community is the product of a land-development program begun in 1894 when John…

  • Eldridge, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Eldridge is near the junction of Farm roads 950 and 2614, between Garwood and Eagle Lake in southeastern Colorado County. In 1898 it was on the "Bonus Loop" of the Cane Belt Railroad and was named for William T.…

  • Matthews, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Matthews is on the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway at the junction of Farm roads 950 and 102, on the southeastern boundary of Colorado County. The community is named for John Matthews , who came to the area in…

  • Oakland, TX (Colorado County) · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Oakland is just southwest of the intersection of Farm roads 532 and 2144, on the Lavaca county line eight miles south of Weimar in northwest Colorado County. It is on a site originally granted to James Bowie . As early…

  • Pisek, TX · 10.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Pisek is a rural community with indefinite boundaries on the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad in the northern point of Colorado County, three miles from both the Austin and Fayette county lines. Until 1887 the town…

  • Master Sgt. Roy P. Benavidez Memorial Highway · 11.0 mi · Historical Marker

    Honors Master Sgt. Roy P. Benavidez, US Army Special Forces, Medal of Honor recipient for May 2, 1968 rescue of a 12-man recon team in Cambodia despite 37 wounds. Born and raised in El Campo.

  • Joseph and Rachel Rabb Newman · 11.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Egypt, Texas, a place named for a biblical land, but this area's history is rooted in the Texas frontier. Look around – this land was first granted to Joseph and Rachel Rabb Newman, pioneers who…

  • Gas Well in Colorado County, First Producing · 11.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Garwood, Colorado County, where you're passing the site of a major milestone in Texas industry. <break time="400ms"/> On July 17th, <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1932</say-as>, the Nelson…

  • The Quarter Mile Nobody Gets To Drive · 11.3 mi

    Out west of Sealy, close enough to Interstate Ten to hear it, there is a quarter mile of asphalt laid dead straight, with grandstands, a control tower and timing gear, and almost nobody is allowed to use it. It is…

  • He Died With His Hands on the Wheel · 11.3 mi

    U S Highway Ninety Alternate across Wharton County is the Johnnie David Hutchins Memorial Highway, honoring a Medal of Honor sailor. Hutchins was born in Weimar in nineteen twenty two, and as a boy he worked with his…

  • The County Line Is the Water · 11.3 mi

    Somewhere along this stretch of Interstate Ten, between Sealy and Columbus, the highway crosses the San Bernard River, and almost nobody driving it notices the bridge. It is worth knowing what is under there. The San…

  • Garwood, TX · 11.3 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Garwood, Texas, a town that owes its beginnings to both irrigation and a bit of shady land dealing. Back in 1896, a big irrigation project was built to bring rice farmers here. By 1901, the…

  • The Nineteen Thirty Seven Road From Texline to Orange · 12.0 mi

    On May eighteenth, nineteen thirty seven, a Texas highway minute order gave the name Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Highway to a chain of roads. The route started at the New Mexico state line at Texline and ran to…

  • Alleyton Cemetery · 12.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the historic Alleyton Cemetery, a resting place that's been part of this community since the 1850s. The oldest marked grave here belongs to T.S.M. Robinson, who died in 1852 at just 22 years old.…

  • Alleyton · 12.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Alleyton, a town that played a vital role for the Confederacy during the Civil War. By 1860, this was the end of the line for the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railroad, making it a crucial hub.…

  • Western Swing Has a Founder, and He Was Born Right Here · 12.7 mi

    Shelly Lee Alley was born in Alleyton on July 6, 1894, to John Ross and Eliza Alley, which is to say he was born into the family the town is named for. He learned music as a child. During the First World War the Army…

  • The Fever Came In On the Daily Train · 12.7 mi

    On September 4, 1867, an Alleyton doctor reported yellow fever in town. July and August had been unusually wet across Colorado County, which gave the mosquitoes everything they needed, but mosquitoes alone do not start…

  • He Survived the Valley Campaign and a Union Prison. Then He Came Here. · 12.7 mi

    Henry Clay Everett had already used up more luck than most men get. Born in 1830 in Guyandotte, Virginia, he was running a general store when the war came, went home to Cabell County in 1861, and came out a captain of…

  • One of the Deadliest Marshals in the West Is Buried Here, and Nobody Knows Where · 12.7 mi

    Before El Paso, Dallas Stoudenmire lived in Alleyton and worked as a carpenter and a wheelwright. He was born in Alabama in 1845, went into the Confederate Army at sixteen and came out of the war with a long list of…

  • The Biggest Town in the County Was Partly an Army Camp · 12.7 mi

    Alleyton did not grow. It was manufactured, in a hurry, by one landowner and one railroad. In 1859 William Alley handed the Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railway a right of way across his land and set aside two…

  • Two Young Men and One Table of Books in the Back of a Drug Store · 12.7 mi

    In 1881 a twenty year old named Joseph Jefferson Mansfield got off at Alleyton with essentially nothing and took work as a farm laborer. He had been born in Wayne, Virginia, in 1861, the same year his father was killed…

  • Alleyton · 12.7 mi · Historical Marker

    Hey road-trippers! You're cruising through Alleyton, Colorado County, and you're passing through the oldest permanent settlement in this area. This town owes its start to the pioneering Alley family, who were among…

  • Nada · 12.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Nada, a community with roots stretching back to Stephen F. Austin's original colony. But the town as we know it really began in the 1880s, thanks to German and Czech immigrants. John William…

  • Nada Post Office · 12.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Nada, Texas, a community that got its start with a post office back in 1894. William Engbrock, Jr. was the first postmaster, and his dad's general store was the first home for the mail. But this…

  • Two Troopers, Back to Back on Interstate Ten · 13.1 mi

    Interstate Ten in Austin County, from State Highway Thirty Six to the Colorado County line, is the Trooper William Kohlleppel the Third Memorial Highway. William Paul Kohlleppel the Third began his career with the Texas…

  • Mentz-Bernardo Community · 13.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the Mentz-Bernardo Community, a place shaped by German immigrants starting as early as the 1830s. They bypassed formal colonization efforts, choosing this region for its agricultural potential. By…

  • Five Hundred Searchers and a Mesquite Tree · 13.3 mi

    After the Sealy exit shooting, the hunt for Mark Frederick's killer turned this rural country south of town into a dragnet. Other troopers found the white Ford abandoned about three miles away, its body pocked with…

  • Why This Spot Got Called Egypt · 13.8 mi

    Here is the honest story behind the name on the sign. This little community started out as Mercer's Crossing, named for Eli Mercer, who came to Texas around eighteen twenty-nine and set up a home and a ferry across the…

  • The Flood That Grew a Civilization · 13.8 mi

    Since the name here comes from ancient Egypt, let me tell you the trick that made that faraway Egypt so rich in grain in the first place. It was a flood, and it was the best thing that could happen every year. Every…

  • Cracking a Lost Language · 13.8 mi

    Ancient Egypt left behind walls covered in those beautiful little pictures we call hieroglyphs, and for a very long time nobody alive could read a single one. The knowledge had simply died out. What broke it open was a…

  • Egypt Wasn't Called Egypt · 13.8 mi

    Here is a surprising twist for a town named Egypt. The ancient Egyptians did not actually call their own country Egypt. That name came later, from the Greeks. They said Aegyptos, which most scholars trace back to an old…

  • Two Point Three Million Stones · 13.8 mi

    That road sign for Egypt might get you picturing pyramids, but the town actually earned the name back in the eighteen twenties. During a drought that wrecked the crops, this fertile spot on the Colorado River still had…

  • Texas Egypt Versus The Nile · 13.8 mi

    Let us play a little game of Texas versus the original, because this town truly did borrow its name from the ancient land by the Nile. Start with size. The Egypt over in Africa is a nation of well over one hundred…

  • The Oldest Corner of the County · 13.8 mi

    Do not let the small size fool you. This Egypt is the oldest surviving community in all of Wharton County, and it goes right back to the earliest days of Anglo settlement in Texas, when this was still part of Stephen F.…

  • Heard, William Jones Elliot, and Egypt Plantation · 13.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Egypt Plantation, named for the rich soil that reminded early settlers of the Nile Valley. This land was first settled by William Jones Elliot Heard, who arrived here in 1832, acquiring…

  • Egypt Plantation Cemetery · 14.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Wharton County, near the tiny town of Egypt. Back in 1838, William Jones Elliot Heard bought over 2,000 acres and started the Egypt Plantation. He set aside three acres right here for a family…

  • Allen, Martin · 14.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site where Martin Allen lived out his days. Born in Kentucky in 1780, Allen was already a surveyor and a veteran of the ill-fated Gutierrez-Magee Expedition into Spanish Texas by 1812. His father…

  • Hartsville Cemetery · 14.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Hartsville Cemetery, established in 1899. It was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2006.

  • Egypt, Community of · 14.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Egypt, Texas, a town with a name that goes way back. It wasn't named for the pyramids, but for a biblical drought back in 1827. Pioneers from Stephen F. Austin's colony were struggling to find…

  • Prasek's: The I-10 Smokehouse Stop · 14.8 mi

    Right off Interstate 10 on the edge of Sealy sits Prasek's, the classic Texas road-trip smokehouse stop. It runs under the Prasek's Hillje Smokehouse name, carried from the little town of Hillje where the family…

  • Beason's (Beeson's) Crossing · 14.8 mi

    You're driving past Columbus, Texas, where a pioneer named Benjamin Beason set up shop way back in 1822. One of Stephen F. Austin's original colonists, he built a home, an inn, and businesses right here by the Colorado…

  • Benjamin Beason's Crossing of the Colorado River · 14.8 mi

    You're driving through history right now, near where General Sam Houston and the Texas Army made camp back in March of 1836. Houston was leading his troops on a strategic retreat, moving from Gonzales all the way toward…

  • Cookin' With Love Since 1979 · 14.8 mi

    If you want a meal rooted in real Columbus rather than the highway chains, Schobel's Restaurant at 2020 Milam Street is the family table. Brothers Bob and Andy Schobel, along with their wives Mary Jane and Donna, opened…

  • Riverside Hall: The Last Dance · 14.9 mi

    If you want to find the soul of East Bernard, you’ll find it on the worn wooden floor of Riverside Hall. Built in 1927, this is one of the great original Texas dance halls, a place built by the community for the…

  • The Brahma Football Factory · 14.9 mi

    There's something in the water in East Bernard, or maybe it's in the work ethic. For a town this size the trophy case is absurd, but the sport that fills it might surprise you. East Bernard's real dynasty is volleyball:…

  • The Science of the Rice Fields · 14.9 mi

    The vast, flat fields around East Bernard aren't just farmland; they are massive, carefully engineered hydrological systems. Growing rice requires something most Texas farmers try to avoid: standing water. And the…

  • Johnson, Jesse H. · 14.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the resting place of Jesse H. Johnson, a man who wore many hats across Texas and the world. Born in West Virginia, Johnson arrived in Columbus in 1868. By 1869, he was the Sheriff of Colorado County.…

  • The Tale of Two Bernards · 14.9 mi

    Here's a puzzle you can solve from the driver's seat. You're in East Bernard — and you're on the WEST side of the San Bernard River. The name is a fossil. The first settlement really was on the east bank, where a man…

  • Townsend-Koliba House · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Townsend-Koliba House, built in the mid-1800s. Its first owner, Stephen Townsend, was a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto and served as the county's first sheriff in 1837. His descendants…

  • Tait, Charles William, Home · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the former home of Charles William Tait, a man who wore many hats in early Texas. He served as a military surgeon with the 4th Texas Cavalry during the Civil War. After returning home, he finished…

  • Delaney, William Shelby · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Columbus, and right here is the site of the Delaney family homestead. William S. Delaney arrived here in 1860, already a lawyer who'd taught college in Kentucky and practiced law in Tennessee. He…

  • Joseph V. Frnka · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Columbus, Texas, where Joseph V. Frnka built his home back in 1906. He was a self-taught lawyer who became a business leader, helped found the Columbus Lions club, and served in the Texas House of…

  • Columbus Waterworks · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Columbus, where water has been a story for nearly two centuries. Back in 1824, the Mexican government granted land and water rights here, laying the groundwork for this frontier town. But it…

  • Stage Lines Through Columbus · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Columbus, a town that was a vital crossroads for Texas stagecoach lines back in the 19th century. From mail delivery to passengers and freight, lines like Brown and Tarbox, and Sawyer and Risher,…

  • Asa Townsend · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Colorado County, passing the site of where Asa Townsend lived. Born in South Carolina in 1795, Townsend moved his large family to this area in 1838. He was a civic leader, serving on the committee…

  • The Montgomery House · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Montgomery House, a classic example of post-Civil War Texas architecture. Built around 1867 by land agent A. J. Gallilee, its L-shape design features a handmade brick foundation and native oak…

  • The Battle of Columbus Almost Happened Right Here · 15.1 mi

    For one week in March of 1836 this river was the front line of the Texas Revolution, and everybody camped on it expected the war to end here. Sam Houston brought his army to the east bank of the Colorado at Beason's…

  • A Scottish Castle With a Moat, and George Washington's Kin Preaching In It · 15.1 mi

    In 1839 a Scotsman from Dumfries named Robert Robson looked at the south bank of the Colorado River, in a republic that was three years old and mostly log cabins, and built a castle. Not a big house that people…

  • No Electricity, a One-Teacher School, and Then He Rewired Engineering · 15.1 mi

    James Truchard grew up on a farm outside Columbus in a house with no electricity and no indoor plumbing. He did his first schooling at Mentz, up the road, in a school with one teacher in it. He graduated from Columbus…

  • William Menefee · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You are passing the courthouse grounds in Columbus, and the marker here belongs to William L. Menefee, whose name is on the Texas Declaration of Independence. He was born in seventeen ninety-six in Knox County,…

  • From Montezuma to Beason's Crossing to Columbus · 15.1 mi

    You're rolling into one of the oldest Anglo settlements in Texas, a town that has worn three names. The high west bank of the Colorado River here was long known by the legend of an Indian village called Montezuma when…

  • The Week Sam Houston's Army Camped at the Crossing · 15.1 mi

    In the spring of 1836, the riverbank you're near became a staging ground for Texas independence. After the Alamo fell on March 6, Sam Houston retreated eastward from Gonzales and pitched camp on the east bank of the…

  • The Courthouse, Its Lost Tower, and the Green Glass Dome · 15.1 mi

    The grand courthouse on the square at 400 Spring Street was completed in 1891, designed by noted Houston architect Eugene T. Heiner. It didn't always look like this. The original design rose to a tall central clock…

  • The Cattleman's Opera House Where Houdini Played · 15.1 mi

    At 425 Spring Street stands the showiest building a frontier cattle fortune could buy. Cattleman and banker Robert E. Stafford put up the R. E. Stafford Bank and Opera House in 1886, with a bank on the ground floor and…

  • The Scotsman Who Built a Concrete Castle With a Moat · 15.1 mi

    On the northern edge of old Columbus, a Scottish immigrant once lived inside an honest-to-goodness castle. Robert Robson came to the Republic of Texas in 1839, and in 1848 he bought a block of riverside land and built a…

  • Refrigerated Beef From Columbus to Queen Victoria's Table · 15.1 mi

    On the old Robson's Castle site by the river, Columbus pulled off something genuinely cutting-edge for 1884: it built a mechanically refrigerated meat-packing plant, one of only three packing houses in all of Texas at…

  • The Courtroom Ceiling Came Down on a Day Court Was Supposed to Be in Session · 15.1 mi

    In 2006 a section of the ornamental plaster ceiling in the district courtroom of the Colorado County Courthouse let go and came down into the room. Court was supposed to be sitting that day. There was a trial on the…

  • The Grudge That Put an Opera House Curtain Over a Hog Pen · 15.1 mi

    The Stafford Opera House gave its last performance of the old era in 1916. Afterward the widow Stafford sold the building to a man named Guilmartin, who ran the Ford dealership in town, and Guilmartin moved his cars…

  • They Floated a Courthouse Down the River and Watched It Keep Going · 15.1 mi

    Colorado County needed a courthouse and the county had a problem: no pine. The nearest good building timber stood in the pine forest up around where Bastrop is now, which is a long way to haul lumber by ox wagon over…

  • Twentieth Round Out of Columbus High, Seventh Overall Three Years Later · 15.1 mi

    Doug Rau was born in Columbus in December of 1948 and came up through Columbus High School, and the first time a big league club wanted him it was not much of a want. Baltimore took him in 1967 in the twentieth round.…

  • The Summer the Shooting Started Again on This Square · 15.1 mi

    Stand on this square and you are standing in the middle of the Colorado County Feud. It had already been running for years by the summer of 1906, and everybody in town assumed it had burned itself out. It had not. On…

  • Colorado County, City of Columbus · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Columbus, the site of Stephen F. Austin's projected colony capitol back in 1823! It was first mapped as Montezuma, and by 1836, it was the seat of government for Colorado County. By the late…

  • Stafford Opera House · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Stafford Opera House, built in 1886 by millionaire cattleman R.E. Stafford. This grand theater could seat a thousand people and featured gas chandeliers and a hand-painted curtain.…

  • Tumlinson Family · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the heart of the Colorado District, the very area where John Tumlinson, a leader among Austin's Old Three Hundred, served as the first alcalde. He was tasked with justice and organizing the local…

  • Early Site of Dr. Logue's Drugstore · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Early Site of Dr. Logue's Drugstore. Known as first drugstore in Republic of Texas. Founded 1844 by Dr. John G. Logue (1815-1861), who came here after graduation (1842) from Jefferson Medical…

  • Columbus Oak · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You are passing the Columbus Oak marker on the courthouse square, and it may be the most confident wrong thing the state of Texas ever cast in bronze. Set here for the Texas Centennial in nineteen thirty-six, it reads:…

  • The Brick Tower Dynamite Couldn't Bring Down · 15.1 mi

    On the public square stands a squat brick tower that simply refused to die. Built in 1883 from some 400,000 locally made bricks, it once held a big water tank up high so the town could fight downtown fires by…

  • The Five-Hundred-Year-Old Oak on Walnut Street · 15.1 mi

    Columbus calls itself the City of Live Oaks and Live Folks, and the patriarch of all those trees stands at 1218 Walnut Street, across from the post office. The Columbus Oak is estimated at more than 500 years old,…

  • Live Oaks and Dead Folks · 15.1 mi

    After dark, the old city cemetery in Columbus is the kind of place that invites a ghost story, and the town leans right into it. Every year on the first Saturday in November, the Nesbitt Memorial Library stages the Live…

  • Five Thousand Santa Clauses in a House on Washington Street · 15.1 mi

    A block off the courthouse square, in a small house at 604 Washington with a hand-painted mural on the outside, live more than five thousand Santa Clauses. Mary Elizabeth Youens Hopkins was handed a Santa in 1913, when…

  • Before Texas Joined the Union, Columbus Was Rolling Cigars · 15.1 mi

    Ask what the first real industry in Columbus was and the answer is not a gin or a mill or a foundry. Apart from the blacksmith shops, the first major industry here was a German cigar factory, started around 1840. Sit…

  • Columbus - Stafford Opera House · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    Columbus is one of the oldest Anglo-American settlements in Texas, planted on the Colorado River by Stephen F. Austin's original colonists in the 1820s. The Stafford Opera House, built in 1886, is a Victorian gem that…

  • William B. DeWees · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Columbus, and right here is the story of William B. DeWees, an early Texas settler who arrived way back in 1822, when Texas was still part of Mexico. He was one of Stephen F. Austin's original 300…

  • William Demetris Lacey · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site where William Demetris Lacey first set up shop in what is now Columbus. He arrived here from Kentucky back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1831</say-as>, opening a tanyard and…

  • The Rangers of Austin's Colony · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the early days of Stephen F. Austin's colony, right where protection was a major concern. Back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1823</say-as>, after a string of Indian attacks, Captain…

  • Stafford-Miller House · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Stafford-Miller House, a stunning Victorian built in 1886 by Robert E. Stafford, a wealthy cattleman and banker. He was a key organizer of the Columbus Meat & Ice Co. What's wild is that Stafford…

  • Colorado County Courthouse · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Colorado County Courthouse. This classic revival building--erected in 1890-1891 in form of a Greek cross--is now one of 28 oldest existing courthouses in Texas' 254 counties. Contractors Martin,…

  • District Court Tree · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    This marker sits in the middle of Travis Street near Walnut, and the tree it was written for is dead. Texas set it in nineteen sixty-nine. It says that in eighteen thirty-seven this oak sheltered Texas jurors, that the…

  • First United Methodist Church of Columbus · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the First United Methodist Church of Columbus, one of the very first Protestant congregations in all of Texas, founded way back in Austin's original colony. Imagine, this community was…

  • 1890 Cornerstone Ceremony · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Columbus, where the Colorado County Courthouse got its start with a huge public celebration on July 7, 1890. Three thousand people showed up for a barbecue and a procession led by a marching band.…

  • Ehrenwerth-Ramsey-Untermeyer Building · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Ehrenwerth-Ramsey-Untermeyer Building. Henry M. Ehrenwerth built this two-story commercial structure in 1873-75 of bricks from a local kiln. Designed for his mercantile store, it housed L.G. Smith's…

  • Confederate Memorial Museum · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Confederate Memorial Museum. Built 1883 by town of Columbus, using over 400,000 handmade bricks. Has 32-inch walls. Served as water tower and fire house until 1912. Since 1926 owned by…

  • Caledonia Lodge No. 68, A. F. & A. M. · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Columbus, and right here, you're passing the site of Caledonia Lodge No. 68. Organized way back in 1850, this Masonic lodge was chartered in 1851. But they didn't just meet and greet. On February…

  • The Colorado County Citizen · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past The Colorado County Citizen. Established 1857 by Ben, James, and Hicks Baker, the "Citizens" was named by the Rev. J. J. Scherer, minister-educator.

  • The Best of the Four: Sealy in 1995 · 15.2 mi

    Sealy won four straight Class 3A state championships from 1994 through 1997 — 36-15 over Atlanta, 21-20 over Commerce, 36-27 over Tatum, 28-21 over Commerce again — becoming the first UIL eleven-man program ever to win…

  • The 1956 Championship That Isn't in the UIL Column · 15.2 mi

    Sealy is credited with five state football championships — 1978, 1994, 1995, 1996 and 1997 — but the town won another one in 1956 that does not appear in the UIL record book, because it was not a UIL championship.…

  • City of Columbus · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Columbus, Texas, which holds the distinction of being the oldest surveyed and platted Anglo-American town in the entire state! It all started around Christmas of 1821, when settlers like the…

  • The Girl Who Made Bullets for the Alamo Wrote It All Down · 15.2 mi

    The house at 602 Washington Street belonged to the most valuable civilian eyewitness early Texas produced. Dilue Rose came here as a child in 1833, and when the Revolution came she helped mold bullets for the men…

  • Dilue Rose Harris · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a remarkable Texas writer's home. Dilue Rose Harris, born in 1825, arrived in Texas in 1833. She married young, at almost 14, and later moved to Columbus with her husband Ira in 1845.…

  • Fiftieth Anniversary Celebration of the American Declaration of Independence · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Columbus, Colorado County, where settlers in Stephen F. Austin's first colony were trying to celebrate American Independence, even though Mexican authorities didn't like it. On July 4th, 1826, folks…

  • Dilue Rose and Ira Albert Harris House · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Dilue Rose and Ira Albert Harris House, built in 1858 right here in Columbus. The Harris family moved here in 1845, and Ira served as both county sheriff and city marshall. But Dilue was a…

  • Mansfield, Joseph Jefferson · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the birthplace of Joseph Jefferson Mansfield, a man whose life spanned West Virginia, Eagle Lake, and eventually the halls of Congress. Born Beauregard Mansfield in 1861, his name was changed to…

  • Abram Alley Log Cabin · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a historic log cabin, built in late 1836 by Abram Alley. Alley arrived in Texas in the 1820s, joining Stephen F. Austin's original colony. During the Texas War for Independence, he joined…

  • Ben Marshall Baker · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the former home of Ben Marshall Baker, a man who shaped Texas news for half a century. He and his brothers founded the 'Colorado Citizens' newspaper right here in Columbus back in 1857. When the…

  • Harrison, Robert Henry, M.D. · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a remarkable Texas doctor and civic leader, Robert Henry Harrison. Born in Georgia in 1826, he earned his medical degree in Ohio and served as a colonel in the Confederate Army. After the…

  • Harrison-Hastedt House · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Harrison-Hastedt House in Columbus. What you're seeing started as a humble two-room house back in 1861. Fast forward to the 1880s, and Jesse Joyner Harrison decided it was time for an upgrade. He…

  • Hunt-Cassell House · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Hunt-Cassell House, the oldest home still standing in Columbus. <break time="400ms"/> It was built around 1858. <break time="400ms"/> Captain William G. Hunt bought it in 1859 and lived here…

  • Ilse-Rau House · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising past the Ilse-Rau House, a real-time capsule of Victorian Texas architecture. Built in 1887 by Henry Ilse, this farmer and saloon owner clearly had an eye for style. Check out that symmetrical Victorian…

  • Site of Railway Hospital · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Columbus, and right here is the site of an early railway hospital. Dr. Robert Henry Harrison, a graduate of two medical colleges, moved here in the 1870s as the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio…

  • Saint John's Episcopal Church · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising through Columbus, and right here is the site of Saint John's Episcopal Church. Episcopal services first flickered to life in this town way back in 1848, with traveling clergy holding services when they…

  • Toliver-Cone House · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Toliver-Cone House, a beautiful example of Texas vernacular architecture. Local leader James Toliver, a Civil War veteran, built this home around 1870 using the best pine and cypress from his own…

  • Hahn House · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Hahn House, built around 1868. In 1890, Peter Hahn, who bought the place in 1885, moved the original cottage and built this impressive two-story Victorian home, complete with a…

  • Brunson Building · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Columbus, where Charles Brunson, a German immigrant who arrived in America in 1845, made his mark. Around 1867, he opened a saloon here that did so well, he built this very building in 1891,…

  • Brick Store House · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Brick Store House, a building that served as a vital mercantile hub for decades. From 1840 to 1867, it was owned by Thomas W. Harris, a physician who also ran the store. After Harris,…

  • Columbus State Bank · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Columbus State Bank, a building with a long financial history. When it was built in 1919, they kept a wall from the 1857 Boedecker Building, which had housed the city's very first bank back in…

  • Rosenfield Building · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Rosenfield Building in Columbus, a structure with roots going way back to 1837. It wasn't always this building, though. John Rosenfield bought the property in 1872 and around 1896, he put up this…

  • Rock Island, TX (Washington County) · 15.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Washington County, not far from Hempstead. Right here, this area was once home to an early settlement called Rock Island. It started as a plantation owned by the granddaughter of Jared E. Groce,…

  • Tate-Senftenberg-Brandon Home · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Tate-Senftenberg-Brandon Home, a house that's seen some serious Texas history. It started as a simple cottage in 1867, built by Phocian Tate. Then, in 1887, merchant A. Senftenberg bought it,…

  • The Columbus Tap Railway · 15.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Columbus, and right here, history was almost rerouted! The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado Railway was the first in Texas, built in the 1850s. But it bypassed Columbus, heading to Alleyton…

  • Bartels-Wirtz House · 15.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Bartels-Wirtz House in Columbus, a beautiful Victorian cottage built around 1886. Look for its unique star-tracery gable window and delicate bargeboard trim. Anton Bartels, a German immigrant…

  • Homesite of Fannie Baker Darden · 15.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising past the homesite of Fannie Baker Darden, the self-proclaimed 'Poet Laureate of Columbus.' Born in 1829, she was the daughter of a hero from the Texas War for Independence. After marrying an attorney and…

  • General Store, Old · 15.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of what was once a bustling, spicy-smelling general store in Columbus. This building went up in 1892, built by H. S. Williams, who was both a merchant and the city mayor. For over thirty…

  • Hancock-Heller Home · 15.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past a piece of Colorado County history right now, the Hancock-Heller Home. The original cypress-walled structure went up in 1865, built by John S. Hancock, the county tax collector. Notice the classic…

  • McCormick, George, Home of Texas Attorney General · 15.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the home of George McCormick, a man who wore many hats in early Texas. This cottage, built way back in 1868, was his family home for over a century. McCormick arrived in Texas in 1858, served in the…

  • Townsend-West House · 15.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're passing the Townsend-West House, a real Victorian jewel right here in Columbus. Built in 1890, it's a stunning example of Eastlake style architecture. This house has seen some Texas history! It was home to Marcus…

  • Site of Columbus Female Seminary · 15.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Columbus, and right here stands the site of the first organized school in town. Back on February 3rd, 1851, the Caledonia Lodge founded this Female Seminary. It operated for many years, teaching…

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