After finishing his music degree at Huston-Tillotson in Austin in nineteen sixty two, a young pianist named James Polk took a job teaching at Washington High School, Elgin's all-Black school. He also started a band, James Polk and the Brothers, which was hailed as one of the first integrated bands in Austin and could play rooms that were otherwise closed to Black musicians. By the late nineteen seventies, Ray Charles called and offered him a job as pianist for the Ray Charles Orchestra, and over the next ten years Polk's role kept growing, to organist, arranger and conductor.

RoadyGoat →

History of Elgin

The Chief Who Answered the Call on Two Ninety RoadyGoat

1963

On US Highway Two Ninety, a bridge carries the name of Police Chief James M. Mumford. It is a local designation. Mumford had been police chief in Granger for four years before he joined the Elgin Police Department. He had served in Elgin for eighteen months, and was its chief of police, when the call came. On November fifteenth, nineteen sixty three, a highway patrolman was trying to stop a stolen car on Highway Two Ninety, and Chief Mumford went to help. When the car was forced to stop, the driver got out with a handgun and opened fire. Chief Mumford was shot in the head and killed. The patrolman was also shot and seriously wounded, but he was able to return fire. Then two passing motorists stepped in and subdued the gunman. The man who shot the chief was sentenced to twelve years. James Mumford was fifty four years old. He left his wife and two daughters. His name rides on the same highway where he answered his last call.

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Why Elgin Became the Sausage Capital RoadyGoat

1882

Elgin is the official Sausage Capital of Texas, a title the state legislature actually granted it in 1995, and the reason traces back to a problem with no refrigerator. In 1882 a man named William Moon began raising and butchering animals outside town, hauling the fresh meat in by horse-drawn wagon and selling it door-to-door. The trouble was that any meat he did not sell that day would quickly spoil in the Texas heat. The solution was old and reliable: smoke it and turn it into sausage, which keeps far longer than fresh meat. That operation grew into Southside Market, and its famous Elgin hot guts were born partly as a way to beat spoilage. There is even a great piece of company lore that a longtime worker named Bud Frazier swore the place changed hands during Wednesday night card games, so now and then he would show up Thursday morning working for a brand-new boss. Elgin's other sausage giant, Meyer's, grew from Rudolph Meyer selling homemade links out of a grocery in the 1930s before forming his company in 1949. (Sources: Southside Market; Meyer's; State of Texas.)

Welcomed at Elgin on Alamo Day RoadyGoat

On the sixth of March, eighteen eighty three, a delegation from the Texas Legislature rode the train out of Austin to Elgin and waited for a very important guest: Porfirio Díaz, the former president of Mexico, traveling by special train toward Monterrey. When the train pulled in, with its Pullman sleeper and a railroad executive's private car, the delegation climbed aboard, led by General Santos Benavides, who was introduced as an old and intimate friend of Díaz. Here's the twist: according to the Handbook of Texas, Benavides had been accused of letting his ranch be used as a supply depot for raids against Díaz. Back in Austin, the Senate rose to honor the general, and the House, sitting as a committee, forgot to rise. An Austin paper noted the date, forty seven years to the day after the fall of the Alamo. Díaz went on to rule Mexico for most of the next three decades.

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Burleson, Mary R. B. Christian

1832

Mary Randolph Buchanan Christian Burleson, pioneer settler, daughter of John and Nancy (Wright) Buchanan, was born in Wytheville, Virginia, on March 1, 1795. She married Thomas Christian in 1822 in Kentucky, gave birth to three children, and traveled to the Illinois frontier, where she had two more children. In Missouri the family joined immigrants headed to San Felipe de Austin in Texas, where they arrived in April 1832. They settled in Mina (Bastrop), built one of the first houses there, and obtained a grant of a league in Austin's Little Colony. There Mary Christian gave birth to a daughter. In 1833 the Christians moved north to Webbers Fort on the Colorado River. Thomas Christian was scalped and murdered in the Wilbarger Massacre in August 1833 ( see WILBARGER, JOSIAH PUGH ). Christian and her children moved to Reuben Hornsby 's fort, where in 1834 she married James Burleson, Sr. They had one daughter. At Mina in 1835 Mary Burleson and ten other women, including Cecilie, a slave of the Samuel Craft family, organized what some believe to be the second oldest Methodist Church in Texas. Mrs. Burleson, by then a widow, fled in the Runaway Scrape with the Jenkins and Burleson families. In 1840 she moved with her seven children to a newly built log house on Thomas Christian's league. Their house at the edge of the settlement was the first at the site of present-day Elgin. They moved back to Bastrop, however, after their house was ransacked during an Indian attack. Mary Burleson returned to the area in 1847 and remained there until her death. In the 1860s she and her stepson, Jonathan Burleson, granted a right-of-way to the Houston and Texas Central Railway route through their headright leagues and land for the townsite of Elgin (1872). A one-room log schoolhouse called Burleson Branch School operated between Bastrop and Elgin around 1870. With Mary's encouragement, her sons-in-law obtained a charter for the school as the Burleson Male and Female Academy in 1873. In this sparsely settled area, the school was never well attended; it closed when a school was organized in Elgin. Mary Burleson died on May 27, 1870, in Bastrop and was buried at Christian-Burleson Cemetery on the Christian league.

Tsha Handbook →

Elgin, TX

1872

Elgin is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 290 and State Highway 95, fifteen miles north of Bastrop in north Bastrop County. In 1871 the Houston and Texas Central Railway built through the area and established a flag stop called Glasscock. The name was changed to Elgin, in honor of the railroad's land commissioner and surveyor, Robert Morris Elgin, on August 18, 1872, when the town was officially platted. Elgin was incorporated and received a post office the following year, and a Baptist Sunday school began meeting in a private home. Much of the community's early population was drawn from nearby Perryville, which the railroad had bypassed. In 1879 Elgin was described as a "thriving depot town" of 400. It had a newspaper, a gin, and a gristmill. Three years later Methodists erected the first church building in town. In 1884 Elgin had five general stores, two druggists, three cotton gins, and a saloon; that year Thomas O'Conner started a brick-making enterprise that eventually led Elgin to adopt the epithet "Brick Capital of the Southwest." In 1886 the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad came through, adding to Elgin's business as a shipping point for cotton, wool, and livestock. By 1890 the community had a population of 1,100 and supported two hotels, a broom factory, two doctors, a dentist, and the Elgin Courier . The next year oil was discovered five miles southeast of town, but the strike was not large. Coal proved better for the economy, when the large coal belt nearby was mined in the early twentieth century. Elgin grew slowly but steadily through the twentieth century, from 1,258 in 1904 to 4,846 in 1990. By 1940 it was not only the center of a farming community but the site of two big brick and tile plants. Elgin enterprise was stimulated during World War II by the proximity of the army training facility Camp Swift . A third brick company was established in the town in the mid-1950s, lured by the high-quality clay deposits in the area. In addition to the brick plants, a local sausage factory processed thousands of pounds of beef and pork a week; Elgin Hot Sausage continued to enjoy a widespread reputation. Other industries included cottonseed milling, feed and grain processing, and hydraulic press manufacturing. By the 1980s proximity to Austin had begun to attract commuters to Elgin. In the mid-1980s the Elgin Courier was still being published, the sausage had achieved wider fame, and two brick and tile plants were still in operation. Elgin was also the site of a furniture plant and a leather works. In 2000 the population was 5,700.

Tsha Handbook →

Elgin - Sausage Capital of Texas

1882

Elgin is known as the Sausage Capital of Texas for its distinctive beef hot sausage, produced since the 1880s by local meat markets.

City of Elgin Centennial, 1872-1972

1871

After Houston & Texas Central Railroad built through this area in 1871, town was platted (1872) and named for Robert M. Elgin (1825-1913), H. & T. C. land commissioner. Brick and tile, for which Elgin is widely known, have been chief products here since 1882 when Thomas O'Connor (1846-1937) made hand-molded, sun-dried brick. Other manufacturing and agricultural products bolster the economy. Settlers of six ethnic origins have made the city a center of cultural richness, with good homes, churches and schools. (1972)

Historical Marker →

Miller - Gillum House

1910

Local contractor James Clinton Miller built this home in 1910. It was sold in 1923 to rancher and merchant Wallace R. Gillum, who also served as school board members, alderman, and mayor of Elgin. The eclectic Victorian-era residence exhibits elements of both the Queen Anne and colonial revival styles. Of particular note are the octagonal corner turret topped with metal cresting, oval and art glass semicircular windows, and multi-light transoms. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1987

Historical Marker →

McDade, TX

1875

McDade, on U.S. Highway 290 eight miles southeast of Elgin in northern Bastrop County, was established in 1869 in anticipation of the arrival of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. Two years later the first train reached the site, and the town was officially platted and named after James W. McDade, who lived in Brenham. In its early days McDade was also called Tie City or Tie Town. Two explanations for the name are given, the first being that ties and logs cut for the railroad were gathered at the site. The other story is that it was known as Tie City because of its status as a regional freight and cotton shipping center. The first business in McDade was a tent saloon, where a tin cup of whiskey sold for ten cents. With the coming of the railroad McDade became a shipping center for cotton and freight going to and from Austin, Bastrop, and Smithville. By the time the town was incorporated in 1873 it had a post office, a cotton gin, and a twelve-member Baptist congregation. The next year the first school was established. In 1879 McDade was called a "thriving depot town" of 150 people, but following the Civil War lawlessness and violence in the area had become a serious concern. The area was a stronghold for a group of outlaws known as the notch cutters, and county law enforcement was far away and ineffective. By 1875 local citizens took the law into their own hands and hung two suspected outlaws, provoking retaliation with the murder of two vigilantes, which led to the hanging of a third outlaw. Early in 1876 two men were caught with a skinned cow, and the skin showed the Olive brand. Both men were shot on the spot. Five months later fifteen men, believed to have been led by the son of one of the men shot, attacked the Olive ranch headquarters, killing two men of the ranch and burning the ranch house. On June 26, 1877, vigilantes stopped a dance, took four men out and lynched them. For five years after there was little crime or trouble. However, in November 1883 two men were murdered in Fedor, and in a separate incident another man was beaten, robbed, and left for dead. Shortly afterwards the deputy sheriff investigating these crimes was shot to death in McDade. A vigilante committee hung four of the suspected perpetrators. But the violence continued with the McDade Christmas hangings on Christmas Eve 1883, when three more suspected outlaws were executed. This event led to a gunfight in front of a McDade saloon on Christmas Day that left three more men dead. This ended the vigilante "justice," but violence and gunfights continued until 1912. McDade had a district school and a church in 1884. It also had a thriving broom factory, which employed ten workers in 1881, the first year of operation. Matthew Dunkin started a pottery called Randolph Factory east of Bishop. When he died Milton Stoker moved it to McDade to be near clay deposits. In 1890 Robert L. Williams became owner, and he and his son operated the business until World War II . Called McDade Pottery , it caused the town to become well known throughout the state. Williams also invented and patented a charcoal cooker that became a large seller. There were also several coal mines in the area, and the coal was used by local businesses. In 1890 the McDade Mentor , a weekly newspaper, was founded, and the population stood at 250. Six years later the town had 400 residents, a graded school, and Baptist, Christian, and Methodist churches, as well as businesses that included two blacksmiths, two milliners, and two doctors. McDade reached a population of 500 by 1914 and 600 by 1925. By the 1930s, though, the community was declining. McDade Pottery closed during World War II. In the mid-1950s the town's population fell to 220, and the four-block business district was reduced to less than a block. However, the town remained an agricultural center particularly noted for the melons produced in the surrounding sandy soils. By the late 1960s the population had taken a turn to 300, a

Tsha Handbook → · 9.7 mi away

Things to Do in Elgin

food 21.2 mi away

Franklin Barbecue

Legendary Austin BBQ with 2-3 hour waits. Obama waited in line here.

quirky 17.3 mi away

The Con Man Who Named a Town

Bastrop's namesake Baron de Bastrop was no baron at all. He was a Dutch commoner named Philip Hendrik Nering Bogel wanted for embezzlement in the Netherlands.…

historical 17.4 mi away

The Man Who Survived His Own Scalping

In 1833 Josiah Wilbarger was scouting near Bastrop when Comanches attacked his party with arrows and bullets. They left him for dead after taking his scalp.…

quirky 18.3 mi away

The Forest That Shouldn't Exist

The Lost Pines of Bastrop are a thirteen-mile stretch of loblolly pines growing over a hundred miles west of the East Texas forests they genetically match.…

historical 19.5 mi away

The Fire That Nearly Took the Lost Pines

On September 4 2011 strong winds from a nearby tropical storm snapped trees onto power lines east of Bastrop. Three separate fires merged into the most…

historical 21.6 mi away

Texas State Capitol

The Texas Capitol in Austin is taller than the US Capitol in Washington -- three hundred and eight feet to two hundred and eighty-eight -- because Texas wanted…

historical 21.8 mi away

Antone's Nightclub

Clifford Antone was a kid from Port Arthur who loved the blues so much he opened a club on East Sixth Street in 1975 and spent the next thirty years flying…

quirky 22.1 mi away

Congress Avenue Bridge Bats

When Austin rebuilt the Congress Avenue Bridge in 1980 the new design accidentally created perfect crevices for Mexican free-tailed bats. By the mid-1990s one…

day trip

Day Trip to Elgin: 🐄 The Sausage Capital of Texas FULL EPISODE

Featured on The Daytripper — a full-episode local travel guide.

Everything Near Elgin

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

Burleson, Mary R. B. Christian · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
Mary Randolph Buchanan Christian Burleson, pioneer settler, daughter of John and Nancy (Wright) Buchanan, was born in Wytheville, Virginia, on March 1, 1795. She married Thomas Christian in 1822 in Kentucky, gave birth…
Elgin, TX · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
Elgin is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 290 and State Highway 95, fifteen miles north of Bastrop in north Bastrop County. In 1871 the Houston and Texas Central Railway built through the area and established a flag…
Southside Market & Barbeque · 0.4 mi · Things to Do
Elgin's BBQ originator, established 1882 by William Moon, who slaughtered animals on FM 1704 and sold meat door-to-door by wagon. Now on US 290 — sausage…
City of Elgin Centennial, 1872-1972 · 0.7 mi · Historical Marker
After Houston & Texas Central Railroad built through this area in 1871, town was platted (1872) and named for Robert M. Elgin (1825-1913), H. & T. C. land commissioner. Brick and tile, for which Elgin is widely known,…
The Chief Who Answered the Call on Two Ninety · 0.8 mi
On US Highway Two Ninety, a bridge carries the name of Police Chief James M. Mumford. It is a local designation. Mumford had been police chief in Granger for four years before he joined the Elgin Police Department. He…
Elgin Methodist Church · 1.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Elgin, and right here is the site of the town's very first church congregation. Organized in 1874 as the Elgin Methodist Episcopal Church, South, this community eventually built this beautiful…
Why Elgin Became the Sausage Capital · 1.1 mi
Elgin is the official Sausage Capital of Texas, a title the state legislature actually granted it in 1995, and the reason traces back to a problem with no refrigerator. In 1882 a man named William Moon began raising and…
The 'Homeless Eagles' Who Won State · 1.1 mi
Here is a Elgin story the city tells about its own past. The way Elgin tells it, back in 1946 the Booker T. Washington Eagles, the team from Elgin's segregated Black high school, won a state basketball championship in…
Welcomed at Elgin on Alamo Day · 1.1 mi
On the sixth of March, eighteen eighty three, a delegation from the Texas Legislature rode the train out of Austin to Elgin and waited for a very important guest: Porfirio Díaz, the former president of Mexico, traveling…
The Deputy and the Man Behind the Boxes · 1.1 mi
In November of eighteen eighty three, two men were murdered at Fedor, and another man was beaten, robbed and left for dead. Deputy Sheriff Isaac Heffington went looking for the killers, and in McDade, as he searched, a…
Ski Troops in the Texas Flats · 1.1 mi
In nineteen forty four, the Army's ski troops came to the flat, hot sand hills south of Elgin. The Tenth Mountain Division had trained high in the Colorado Rockies at Camp Hale, learning to ski and climb, and then the…
Good-by, Big Country · 1.1 mi
Starting in July of nineteen forty three, trains brought German prisoners of war to Camp Swift, south of Elgin, many of them captured in North Africa with the Afrika Korps. The Handbook of Texas says they repaired Army…

Show all 200 nearby places

A Week Before Dallas · 1.1 mi
On the fifteenth of November, nineteen sixty three, Elgin's police chief, James Mumford, was helping a highway patrolman stop a stolen car on Highway two ninety. When the car was forced to stop, the driver got out and…
From Elgin's Classroom to Ray Charles's Band · 1.1 mi
After finishing his music degree at Huston-Tillotson in Austin in nineteen sixty two, a young pianist named James Polk took a job teaching at Washington High School, Elgin's all-Black school. He also started a band,…
Elgin Played West Canaan · 1.1 mi
If you've seen the football movie Varsity Blues, you've seen Elgin. According to the studio's production notes, filming started in Coupland in April of nineteen ninety eight, and after two weeks the crew moved to Elgin,…
The Ship That Sank With the Parthenon · 1.1 mi
Elgin, Texas, is named for Robert Morris Elgin, a railroad land commissioner, and not for the British Lord Elgin. But Lord Elgin comes with a shipwreck worth hearing about. Around the year eighteen hundred, Thomas…
The Wolf Who Burned the Lantern of the North · 1.1 mi
Elgin, Texas, isn't named for anything in Scotland, but there is an Elgin there, in Moray, and it once had a cathedral so fine people called it the Lantern of the North. In thirteen ninety, it was burned by a man…
Nobody Coined Hot Dog at a Ballgame · 1.1 mi
Elgin is the Sausage Capital of Texas, so here's a sausage story. You may have heard that the words hot dog were coined at a New York baseball game at the Polo Grounds in nineteen oh one, when a cartoonist named Tad…
One Day on the Job · 1.1 mi
In September of eighteen eighty five, a tenant farmer near McDade was accused of threatening to kill his landlord, and when the constable came with a warrant, the man met him with a Winchester rifle. The constable rode…
Miller - Gillum House · 1.1 mi · Historical Marker
Local contractor James Clinton Miller built this home in 1910. It was sold in 1923 to rancher and merchant Wallace R. Gillum, who also served as school board members, alderman, and mayor of Elgin. The eclectic…
Nofsinger, Dr. I. B., House · 1.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the home of Dr. I. B. Nofsinger, built in 1906. Nofsinger, a Kentucky native, came to Texas at 20, taught school, and studied medicine. He practiced in McDade before moving here. He and his wife…
The Sign Hollywood Left in McDade · 1.1 mi
Over in McDade, a block-long strip of old storefronts looks like the set of a western, and filmmakers have noticed. The nineteen ninety seven TV movie True Women, with Dana Delany and Angelina Jolie, shot scenes there.…
Twenty Minutes in March · 1.1 mi
Just before six thirty on the evening of Monday, the twenty first of March, twenty twenty two, a tornado came down just south and east of Elgin. It lasted about twenty minutes. The National Weather Service found pockets…
Sinatra at Camp Swift · 1.1 mi
Camp Swift, south of Elgin, had some famous visitors during the Second World War. The Bastrop County Historical Commission lists Frank Sinatra, the burlesque star Gypsy Rose Lee, Medal of Honor recipient General…
Elgin's All-Star · 1.1 mi
Ray Culp was born in Elgin on the sixth of August, nineteen forty one, and grew up in Austin, where he won six postseason games, including a no-hitter, to lead Stephen Austin High School to the state title in nineteen…
Elgin Christian Church · 1.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Elgin, and right here is the site of the Elgin Christian Church. The congregation got its start way back in 1888, with folks gathering in other churches until their own sanctuary was built in…
First Presbyterian Church of Elgin · 1.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Elgin's first Presbyterian Church. It all started back in 1881 with Reverend A. J. Adkisson and just ten members of the Cumberland Presbyterian faith. For five years, they met wherever…
The Bishop Born in Elgin · 1.1 mi
A. Frank Smith, born in Elgin in eighteen eighty nine, became one of the most important Methodist leaders of his time. He was elected a bishop in nineteen thirty, became the first president of the Council of Bishops of…
Trudy · 1.1 mi
Here's one for the folklore file. A woman told the Bigfoot Field Researchers Organization that something visited her family's rural property near Elgin: rocks thrown from the trees, whoops in the night, and one night,…
Walls Held Together With Rice · 1.1 mi
Elgin was the Brick Capital of the Southwest, so here's a story about what holds bricks together. Starting around the year five hundred, builders in China began stirring soup made from sticky rice into their lime…
A Flood Helped Build Elgin · 1.2 mi
Elgin exists partly because a flood convinced a railroad not to follow a river. The Houston and Texas Central Railroad had planned to run its line down to the Colorado River and then follow the water toward Austin. But…
The Town That Moved Here Was Called Hogeye · 1.2 mi
Before there was an Elgin, a lot of folks around here lived a couple of miles south in a settlement that went by three names: Young's Settlement, Perryville, and best of all, Hogeye. The story behind that last name is…
A Biplane Landed on Main Street, for Hollywood · 1.2 mi
These quiet brick storefronts have done a lot of acting over the years. In the 1975 Robert Redford movie The Great Waldo Pepper, downtown Elgin played a small town of the 1920s, and for one sequence the production got a…
Elgin - Sausage Capital of Texas · 1.2 mi · Historical Marker
Elgin is known as the Sausage Capital of Texas for its distinctive beef hot sausage, produced since the 1880s by local meat markets.
William B. Standifer · 1.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the resting place of William B. Standifer. He was just a teenager, born in Illinois in 1819, when he fought in the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. That battle won Texas its independence.…
Elgin · 1.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're cruising through Elgin, Texas, a town born from the railroad in 1871. Pioneer folks from a place called Hogeye packed up and moved here when the Houston & Texas Central Railroad came through. It wasn't long…
Elgin Lodge No. 328, A. F. & A. M. · 1.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Elgin Lodge No. 328, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons. This lodge started life in 1870, chartered as Perryville Lodge, about two and a half miles south of here. It moved to Elgin in 1877…
The Ancient Rivers That Made Elgin a Brick Town · 1.3 mi
Elgin became famous for brick because of something that happened more than fifty million years ago. The clay under Elgin and the nearby community of Butler belongs to a rock layer called the Calvert Bluff Formation,…
Elgin, the Brick Capital of the Southwest · 1.3 mi
Look at the old brick storefronts downtown and you are looking at the industry that defined this town. Near Elgin, in a community called Butler, an Irish immigrant bricklayer named Michael Butler is said to have…
The Sausage Capital of Texas · 2.3 mi
You're driving through the official 'Sausage Capital of Texas,' and that title was earned one link at a time. The story begins with German immigrants and a butcher shop called Southside Market, founded way back in 1882.…
Elgin, TX · 2.3 mi
Elgin's got a story to tell, and it stretches far beyond its size. You can feel it in the air, walking down Main Street. This town boomed when the Houston and Texas Central Railway came chugging through back in '72, and…
The Science of an Elgin Brick · 2.3 mi
The reason Elgin became the 'Brick Capital' starts underground. Shortly after 1871 an Irish immigrant bricklayer named Michael Butler found excellent clay pits just west of here, off what's now Farm Road 696, and built…
The Town the Railroad Moved · 2.3 mi
Elgin owes its existence, and its name, to the railroad - though not the way you'd think. Before 1872 this spot was called Glasscock. When the Houston and Texas Central built its line through here in 1871, it put in a…
Lund · 3.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through what used to be Lund, originally Pleasant Hill, settled by Swedish immigrants in the late 1800s. They named it Lund after a city in Sweden. The community had homes, farms, businesses, and a…
Littig Cemetery · 4.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Littig Cemetery, a reminder of a freedmen's town that once thrived here. Littig itself was laid out in 1883, right along the railroad tracks. The land for this very cemetery was donated by…
Smith, Jourdan · 4.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bastrop County, passing the land once owned by Jourdan Smith. Born in Georgia way back in 1811, Smith came to Texas in 1836, answering the call to fight in the revolution. For his service, he was…
Pleasant Grove Cemetery · 4.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Pleasant Grove Cemetery, a place that's been a cornerstone of this community for over 150 years. The earliest marked grave here dates back to 1871, but some unmarked burials might be even older. This…
Kimbro · 5.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through what used to be Kimbro, a community settled in the late 1870s by Swedish, Danish, and German immigrants. At its peak, it had homes, farms, a church, a school, a cotton gin, and two general stores.…
Site of Willow Ranch School · 5.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the old Willow Ranch School, a place that served the children of Swedish immigrant farmers near Manor. In 1894, landowner Peter Carr Wells donated the land, and by 1898, a schoolhouse…
Manda · 5.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the area once known as Manda, a community founded by Swedish immigrants in the 1880s. It was named for Amanda Bengtson Gustafson, sister of the town's first postmaster. By the 1890s, Manda was a…
Carlson · 6.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Carlson, a community that owes its start to two Swedish immigrant brothers. Pete and John Carlson arrived in America in 1869 and settled here in 1881. Pete opened Carlson Store, the very…
Type Cemetery · 6.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Type Cemetery, a quiet testament to Swedish immigration in Central Texas. By the 1890s, Swedish and Danish settlers were arriving, finding a home in communities like this one. August Smith even…
New Sweden Evangelical Lutheran Church · 6.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the New Sweden Evangelical Lutheran Church. This congregation was organized in 1876 by Swedish immigrants and the Reverend J.O. Cavallin. Their first sanctuary went up in 1879, two miles…
The Dancehall That Saved a Town · 7.1 mi
The heart of modern Coupland is beating inside some of its oldest buildings. As you pass through downtown, look for the impressive brick structures. That's the Coupland Dancehall and Inn. In the early 1990s a local…
Coupland on Screen · 7.1 mi
Coupland is a small town with a long screen resume. In the football movie Varsity Blues, released in nineteen ninety nine, two of the players' houses are here on North Broad Street: the Moxon house, home of Mox, James…
A raised berm through Blackland muck · 7.1 mi
The railroad tracks you see cutting through Coupland are the town's literal reason for being - a 19th-century engineering project that put a town where there wasn't one. In 1887 the Bastrop and Taylor Railway was…
Coupland, TX · 7.1 mi
In 1859, Morgan C. Hamilton purchased significant land along Brushy Creek, which he later bequeathed to his nephew, Theodore Van Buren Coupland, upon his death in 1883. Coupland played a pivotal role in the town's…
The Major Who Never Farmed Here · 7.1 mi
Coupland was named for a man who barely lived here. Major Theodore Van Buren Coupland was born in Alabama in 1836 and made his career far away, serving as collector of customs at the port of New Orleans. The land came…
The Ground That Breathes · 7.1 mi
The dark cropland around Coupland sits on one of the strangest soils on Earth. This is the Blackland Prairie, and its signature dirt, Houston Black clay, is a vertisol: 40 to 60 percent clay made largely of smectite, a…
The Town That Waited 125 Years · 7.1 mi
Coupland existed as a community for over a century, with a post office, a school, and a strong identity, but it wasn't officially a 'city.' It was an unincorporated village. That all changed in 2012. As the Austin…
Coupland, Theodore Van Buren · 7.1 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Williamson County, and the town you're passing, Coupland, is named for a man who lived a pretty interesting life. Theodore Van Buren Coupland was a Unionist who fled Texas during the Civil War,…
Monitors in the Pews · 7.2 mi
In nineteen eighteen, Sunday worship at Saint Peter's church in Coupland had listeners nobody invited. This congregation was founded in eighteen ninety four by German and Swiss farm families, under the name Saint Petri…
Rural Farms and Communities Before Camp Swift · 7.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bastrop County, near Sayersville, where history was literally bulldozed for war. Back in 1940, as the U.S. geared up for potential conflict, this entire area was chosen to become Camp Swift, a…
Saint Peters United Church of Christ · 7.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Saint Peters United Church of Christ in Coupland. This congregation started in 1894, formed by German and Swiss immigrants. They built this beautiful Gothic Revival sanctuary back in 1905, adding a…
One Building, A Dozen Lives · 7.3 mi
The dance hall at 101 Hoxie Street has worn more hats than most whole towns. The building went up in 1904 on Coupland's railroad main street. By 1911 it housed the Coupland Drug Company. In 1948 it became Albers…
United States Senator Morgan C. Hamilton · 7.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the area where Morgan C. Hamilton made his home. Born in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1809</say-as>, Hamilton was a true Texas patriot. He served as Secretary of War and Marine for the…
Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Manor New Tech (Manor) · 8.3 mi
Manor New Tech (Manor, TX) placed on the 4A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Zane Thomas (0.500 avg, 2 HR).
Three Oaks (Goerlitz) Cemetery · 8.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Three Oaks Cemetery, formerly known as the Goerlitz Cemetery. It started as a family burial ground, with the earliest marked graves belonging to infant Peter and two-year-old Emma Goerlitz. In…
Lockwood Cemetery · 8.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Lockwood Cemetery near Manor, where some of the earliest Texas pioneers are laid to rest. Gordon C. Jennings, who came from Missouri in 1833 with Stephen F. Austin's colony, was one of the oldest…
When Hollywood Came to Town · 8.5 mi
If downtown Manor looks strangely familiar, you might be a movie fan. In 1993, this town became the backdrop for the film 'What's Eating Gilbert Grape,' starring Johnny Depp and a young Leonardo DiCaprio. Though the…
From War Machine to Science City · 8.5 mi
About a dozen miles west of Manor, out in northwest Austin, sits a sprawling campus with a strange origin story. You might know it as the J. J. Pickle Research Campus, part of the University of Texas. It was born from…
Manor, TX · 8.5 mi
Manor, Texas, a place where you can still feel the pulse of small-town life, even as Austin's sprawl creeps ever closer. The name itself tells a story, a simple marker of ownership in a land of opportunity. It wasn't…
Union Lee Baptist Church · 8.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Union Lee Baptist Church, a cornerstone of this community for generations. Imagine folks gathering for outdoor worship way back in 1874. By 1884, they had a building and a formal…
Pioneer Publisher and Printer David Ervin Lawhon · 9.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the resting place of David Ervin Lawhon, a printer who answered Texas's call to arms. Born in Tennessee in 1811, he learned his trade young and worked in major U.S. cities before heading to…
The Road Between Two Presidents · 9.5 mi
U S Highway Two Ninety from Interstate Thirty Five, and then State Highway Twenty One on to State Highway Six, together make up the Presidential Corridor. The Legislature drew it in nineteen ninety seven, in recognition…
Rice, James O. · 9.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site where James O. Rice, a South Carolina native, made his mark on Texas. He arrived by 1835, fighting for Texas independence and later protecting frontier settlements as a Ranger. In 1839, Rice…
McDade, TX · 9.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
McDade, on U.S. Highway 290 eight miles southeast of Elgin in northern Bastrop County, was established in 1869 in anticipation of the arrival of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. Two years later the first train…
The Olive Brand · 9.7 mi
Early in eighteen seventy six, in the brush country around McDade, two men were caught with a freshly skinned cow. The hide carried the Olive brand. According to the Handbook of Texas, both men were shot on the spot.…
McDade Pottery · 9.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Bastrop County, near the town of McDade. Right here, a century ago, was the heart of the McDade Pottery. It started way back in 1853 as a simple 'jug shop,' but by the late 1870s, it moved to…
Floyd, Thomas Jackson · 9.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Bastrop County, not far from McDade, where a farmer named Thomas Jackson Floyd made a name for himself. Floyd was a leader in the Farmers' Alliance, fighting against trusts and pushing for reform.…
The Festival That Rebuilt a School · 9.7 mi
McDade's biggest party of the year was born out of a fire. In nineteen forty, the town's school burned, and in nineteen forty eight, folks held the first McDade Watermelon Festival to raise money for a new building. It…
Manor Cemetery · 9.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Manor Cemetery, a final resting place for many of this area's earliest settlers. It began with James Manor, who came to Texas in the 1830s and helped found the town that bears his name. The cemetery…
McDade · 9.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past McDade, a town that was once a bustling freight center and stage stop. It was laid out in 1871 and named for a Brenham lawyer. But McDade has a wild streak! In 1883, vigilantes organized and lynched…
Richland School · 9.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through what used to be the Richland community, north of Pflugerville. Back in the 1860s, German settlers here wanted schools for their kids. Franz Schmidt offered his home, then donated land for a…
St. John Church · 9.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Pflugerville, where German settlers in the Richland community started worshiping in their homes back in the 1860s. In 1878, nineteen charter members officially organized the St. John German…
The Town Named Manor, Pronounced MAY-ner · 9.9 mi
The town rolling up around you carries a name that trips up almost everyone who is not from here. It is spelled Manor, but locals say it MAY-ner, rhyming with the start of mayonnaise, and they will gently correct any…
When Manor Played the Town of Endora · 9.9 mi
The water tower you can spot over the rooftops here had a brief movie career. In the winter of 1992 and 1993, the film What's Eating Gilbert Grape, starring Johnny Depp and a teenage Leonardo DiCaprio in his breakout…
The Oldest Racetrack in Texas Was Also a Rock-and-Roll Stage · 9.9 mi
Just west of town, where a giant warehouse park now stands, was Manor Downs, the oldest pari-mutuel horse track in Texas. Frances Carr and Sam Cutler, a former road manager for the Rolling Stones, began building it in…
Eighteen Thousand Bales a Year · 9.9 mi
When the Houston and Texas Central tracks reached Manor in 1871, they turned a scattering of blackland prairie farms into one of the busiest cotton points in Central Texas. The deep, dark, fertile clay around here grew…
The Actress Who Grew Up Riding Horses Here · 9.9 mi
Among the people who spent their childhood on the roads around Manor is the actress Amber Heard. She was born April 22, 1986, in Austin, just down the highway, and grew up out here on the eastern edge of Travis County,…
From Cotton Stop to One of America's Fastest-Growing Suburbs · 9.9 mi
For most of its life, Manor was a sleepy cotton-and-rail town that barely cracked a thousand people. In 2000 the census counted just 1,204 residents here. Then Austin's growth came roaring east. By 2010 the population…
The Little School That Became a National STEM Model · 9.9 mi
On the Manor school district campus stands a high school that drew educators from across the country to a small Texas town. Manor New Technology High School opened on August 27, 2007, built entirely around project-based…
The Diner That Used to Be an Army Barracks · 9.9 mi
If you want to eat somewhere with deep Manor roots, pull into Cafe 290 at 11011 Highway 290 East. The building itself has an origin story most diners cannot match: around 1947, a man named Red Ferguson hauled a surplus…
Closed on March 30, 2024 · 10.0 mi
In the 2003 film the Cele Store is the country store where the group stops to report a death and is directed onward — the proprietor is a member of the family. In real life the store was bought by the Weiss family in…
The Store at Cele · 10.0 mi
When The Texas Chainsaw Massacre was remade in 2003, the production returned to the same Central Texas farm country as the 1974 original, shooting around Manor, Granger, Taylor and Walburg. Unlike the original — whose…
Named for Lucille Custer · 10.0 mi
The Cele Store stands at 18726 Cameron Road at Cele Road, in the farming community of Cele east of Pflugerville in Travis County. It opened in 1891 as the Richland Saloon. Cele was settled in the 1890s and reportedly…
Coleman, Col. Robert, Site of the Home of · 10.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bastrop County, near Utley, on land once defended by Colonel Robert Coleman. He was a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and served as aide-de-camp to General Houston at the Battle of…
Herron, John · 10.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the resting place of John Herron, a veteran of the Texas War for Independence. He fought in the decisive Battle of San Jacinto, the victory that secured Texas's freedom. Remember the name John…
Barrow, Leonidas Theodore · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Central Texas, perhaps near Manor, where Leonidas "Slim" Barrow was born in 1895. This isn't just any town; it's the starting point for a man who would help shape the Texas oil industry. After…
Guerrero, Longino [Lonnie] · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving near Manor, Texas, the birthplace of Longino "Lonnie" Guerrero. Born in 1917, Guerrero became a renowned singer, songwriter, and guitarist, earning the nickname "Composer of Corridos." Corridos are…
City of Manor · 10.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Manor, a town with roots stretching back to the early 1830s. James Manor himself arrived from Tennessee with Sam Houston, eventually returning to bring his family and siblings to this area. For…
Hill, Alexander Campbell · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Travis County, near Manor, where Alexander Campbell Hill settled in the 1850s. Though an ardent Unionist, Hill enlisted in the Confederate Army in 1862, serving in cavalry regiments across…
Bloor House · 10.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Bloor House, a real landmark in the Manor community. Local rancher Alfred Bloor and his wife Martha built this home back in 1897. It's a beautiful example of Queen Anne and Colonial Revival…
Townes, Eggleston Dick · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Travis County, not far from Manor. Right here, in the mid-1800s, lived Eggleston Dick Townes. He was a successful lawyer and planter, one of the wealthiest men in the county by 1860, owning a…
Manor, TX · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving past Manor, a community that owes its name to a postmaster who only held the job for a single year. A post office called Grassdale opened here in 1859 with James Manor as postmaster, but it closed just a…
Rock Front Saloon · 10.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Rock Front Saloon, a place that saw more than just thirsty travelers. This building served as a stagecoach stop and even housed the local post office. But its real claim to fame? It…
The Old Rock of San Jacinto, Buried in His Front Yard · 10.2 mi
State Highway Loop Two Twenty Three in McDade is the Captain Jesse Billingsley Memorial Loop. Billingsley was born in Tennessee in eighteen ten and came to Texas in eighteen thirty four. He joined the Mina Volunteers, a…
McDade Baptist Church · 10.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through McDade, and right here is the site of the McDade Baptist Church, a cornerstone of this community since 1880. Organized by Reverend J. D. Wright, they first worshiped in a shared building. But in…
Mager Cemetery · 10.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Mager Cemetery, a quiet testament to German heritage in Williamson County. Reinhold Mager, who came from Brandenburg, Germany, and his wife Franziska donated this land in 1900. It was for both a…
McDade, TX · 10.3 mi
McDade, a small community in Bastrop County, has a rich history deeply intertwined with the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. Named after James W. McDade, a major stockholder in the railroad in 1869, the town has…
Clayton Vocational Institute · 10.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Manor, where in 1903, Reverend Joseph E. Clayton arrived to lead the area's first black school. Under his guidance, the curriculum expanded beyond traditional studies to include vital vocational and…
George Self · 10.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Webberville, where George Self lived. He fought bravely at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, a key victory in the Texas Revolution. Self lived for another twenty years, passing away in…
James Euwin Edmiston · 10.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Webberville, Texas, near where James Euwin Edmiston settled with his family in 1835. An Arkansas native, Edmiston served as a Texas Ranger during the Revolution, fighting in local Indian battles.…
Joseph J. Manor Cemetery · 10.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Joseph J. Manor Cemetery, a final resting place for Webberville pioneers. Joseph J. Manor himself arrived in Texas at just twenty years old, eventually opening a store and cotton gin right here.…
Pfluger Cemetery · 10.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Pfluger Cemetery, the final resting place for a pioneering German immigrant family. Henry Pfluger, who arrived from Germany in 1850, was buried here in 1867. His wife Christina later set aside…
Post Oak Island Lodge #181, A.F. & A.M. · 10.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through the Elgin area, near where Post Oak Island Lodge #181 was established by local men on September 15, 1855. The lodge was officially chartered in 1856 and managed to pay off their lodge hall's…
Osborn, Claiborn · 11.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Central Texas, a land that was once wild frontier. Right here, back in 1840, a fourteen-year-old pioneer named Claiborn Osborn was on a buffalo hunt near Brushy Creek. Suddenly, warriors attacked.…
Webber, Silvia Hector · 11.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving near Austin, and right here is the story of Silvia Hector Webber. Born enslaved in 1807, she was sold at twelve years old, but by 1834, she and her husband, John Ferdinand Webber, purchased her freedom…
Anderson, Thomas · 11.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Texas, and right here, you might be near where Dr. Thomas Anderson practiced medicine after arriving in 1835. He came to Texas with his two young sons, leaving behind a life in Virginia after his…
Byrd, William · 11.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Central Texas, heading into what was once Webberville. Right here, in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1853</say-as>, a young lawyer named William Byrd set up practice. He was a fiery…
Glascock, George John, Jr. · 11.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what was once Mina Municipality, right here in Bastrop County. Back in 1834, George John Glascock, Jr., packed up his family and slaves in Virginia and headed for Texas. Their journey was rough –…
Pierce, George Washington · 11.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Webberville, Texas, the birthplace of George Washington Pierce. Born in 1872, Pierce became a pioneering physicist and engineer. He earned degrees from the University of Texas and Harvard,…
Grumbles, John J. · 11.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Travis County, not far from where John J. Grumbles made his home. He came to the Republic of Texas in 1837, settling first near Bastrop before moving to Webber's Prairie. Grumbles wasn't just a…
Banks, John Baylor · 11.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what used to be Webber's Prairie, a place that became Webberville. Right here, John Baylor Banks, a state legislator and entrepreneur, made his fortune. He arrived in Texas before 1840, and by the…
Battle of Brushy Creek · 11.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Williamson County, near where a fierce battle unfolded in the winter of 1839. This skirmish along Brushy Creek marked the last major clash between Comanche raiders and Anglo settlers in this area.…
David Crawford Edmiston · 11.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Webberville, passing the land once farmed by David C. Edmiston. He arrived in Texas in 1835, a young man who'd go on to serve as a Texas Ranger in frontier defense and the Mexican War. Later, he…
Webberville · 11.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Webberville, a community with roots stretching back to the early days of Texas settlement. It's named for John F. Webber, who arrived here in 1827, receiving a land grant and settling with his…
Knobbs Springs Baptist Church · 11.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through the Knobbs Springs community, near Lexington. This Baptist church was formed in May of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1860</say-as> by 16 charter members. The congregation has built and…
Webberville Ebenezer Baptist Church · 11.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Webberville, a community founded in 1839 by John F. Webber and his African American wife and children, seeking to escape racism. After Webber sold his land in 1851, a new chapter began in 1868…
Kimbro Family Cemetery · 11.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Kimbro Family Cemetery, a quiet resting place for a family that helped shape Williamson County. Daniel Kimbro arrived in the Republic of Texas way back in 1836, the same year Texas declared…
Norman's Crossing · 11.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Norman's Crossing, a place that started life as Avery in the mid-1800s. It was founded by Daniel Kimbro, a Mexican War veteran and early Williamson County settler. Later, this small farming community…
Union Hill Missionary Baptist Church · 11.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Union Hill Missionary Baptist Church, a place with roots stretching back to the days of slavery. Local tradition says enslaved people gathered here long before the church was officially…
Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Weiss (Pflugerville) · 11.8 mi
Weiss (Pflugerville, TX) placed on the 5A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Amari Maxwell (0.516 avg, 1 HR); Patrick Brock (0.463 avg, 1 HR).
The Lake With No River to Fill It · 12.1 mi
Lake Pflugerville looks like a natural lake, but it is really a clever piece of water engineering, and the trick is that no river runs into it. The city built this off-channel reservoir in 2005 northeast of town, near…
M.B. Norman House · 12.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're cruising through Hutto, Texas, and right here is the M.B. Norman House, a place that's been in the same family for over a century! Mart B. Norman arrived in this area back in 1873, eventually farming, running a…
Saul Cemetery · 12.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Saul Cemetery, a quiet resting place established way back in 1870. Charles Saul, who bought this land in 1862, died that year and was the first to be buried here. His wife, Louisa, joined him…
Camp Swift, TX · 12.7 mi
While Camp Swift itself was a training ground rather than a place of residence for famous individuals, its history touches upon notable figures. The camp was named after Major General Eben Swift, a distinguished…
Decker Swedish Evangelical Free Church and Cemetery · 12.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Decker, just outside Austin, where Swedish immigrants found a new home and a new church in the 1880s. Many were seeking freedom from the Swedish state church, and they started meeting in homes and…
Lawrence Chapel Cemetery · 12.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Lawrence Chapel Cemetery, the final resting place of Adam Lawrence, a man who truly earned his peace. Born in Kentucky, Lawrence arrived in Texas early, receiving a land grant in 1822 and fighting in…
Shiloh-McCutcheon Cemetery · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Shiloh-McCutcheon Cemetery, a place with roots stretching back to the very beginnings of this community. The area, known as Shiloh, was established around 1848 with stores and homes along Brushy…
Hornsby Bend, TX · 13.7 mi
The place we now know as Hornsby Bend carries a name with a rich history. It was named after Reuben Hornsby, an early settler and postmaster during the Republic of Texas era. His legacy continues in the form of his…
Washington Bower · 13.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Washington Bower, built in 1853. This was the very first frame house in the Taylor area. The land itself was granted by the Republic of Texas way back in 1838. The builder, Henry Inlo…
Boyce Family Cemetery · 13.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Manor, a town Aaron Boyce helped settle back in the days of the Republic of Texas. His family's small cemetery here holds five graves, including his son James, who was only fifteen when he was…
Adina Cemetery · 13.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Adina Cemetery, originally deeded by Civil War veteran R.L. Cain in 1867. It became known as Adina when the post office arrived. The earliest known burials predate the deed, including Martha Cane…
Decker United Methodist Church and Community · 13.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Decker United Methodist Church, a testament to Swedish immigrants who settled this area. They first gathered for worship in Austin as early as 1867, then began holding services in…
Trooper Carlos Warren Memorial Highway · 14.0 mi · Historical Marker
Honors TX DPS Trooper Carlos Ray Warren, killed March 5, 1991, interrupting an attempted kidnapping at a SH-71 rest area near Del Valle. A speeder Warren had once ticketed later inspired Texas's roadside memorial-marker…
The Jefferson Davis Highway Plan · 14.0 mi
Several Texas highways carry an old honorary name, the Jefferson Davis Highway. It grew out of a plan conceived in nineteen thirteen and promoted by the United Daughters of the Confederacy: a coast to coast road named…
Pflugerville Colored Addition · 14.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
The Pflugerville Colored Addition is located in Travis County on Farm Road 1825 in west Pflugerville. In 1910 black workers in Travis County who worked in the Pflugerville cotton industry and ice factory were not…
Bohls, Sidney William · 14.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Travis County, not far from Pflugerville, the birthplace of Dr. Sidney William Bohls. Born in 1898, Bohls became a crucial figure in Texas public health. In 1928, he was appointed director of…
Pflugerville, TX · 14.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving north of Austin, and right here is Pflugerville. It all started back in 1849 when Henry Pfluger brought his family here from Germany. For a while, it was just a quiet community, but things really picked…
Flachmeier, William August · 14.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Pflugerville, the birthplace of William August Flachmeier, a Lutheran minister who lived a remarkable life. Born in 1900, he was ordained by his own father and served parishes in Colorado and…
Immanuel Lutheran Church · 14.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Taylor, a town built by German immigrants and the railroad. Look around, and you might see the legacy of those early settlers. Lutheran services started here in 1885, and fourteen families…
The Queen Anne Farmhouse the Town Saved · 14.3 mi
At 901 Old Austin-Hutto Road sits the Heritage House Museum, better known to old-timers as the Bohls House, and it is the closest thing Pflugerville has to a window into its farming heyday. Gottlieb William Bohls, a…
Bohls House · 14.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Bohls House, a beautiful example of Queen Anne architecture built in 1913. Gottlieb Bohls and his wife Bertha built this eight-room home after buying the land. Later, his brother Otto took over…
Williamson County · 14.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Williamson County right now, formed back in 1848 from Milam County. It's named for Robert McAlpin Williamson, a real Texas pioneer. He was an editor, a lawyer, a patriot, and a statesman who even…
Deputy Jessica Hollis and the Low Water Crossing · 14.4 mi
Farm to Market Road Six Eighty Five, from State Highway One Thirty south to East Pecan Street, is the Deputy Jessica Hollis Memorial Highway. Jessica Hollis began her career with the Austin Police Department and went on…
Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church · 14.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Immanuel Evangelical Lutheran Church. Circuit riders began in 1852 to hold religious services in this area. In 1869, the Texas Synod of the Lutheran church sent Pastor F. Ernst to preach to the local…
Bland, Howard, Sr. · 14.5 mi · Historical Marker
Driving through Taylor, you're passing the former domain of Howard Bland, Sr. He arrived in Texas in 1878, starting out with sheep on his homestead right near here. That annual sheep shearing contest he sponsored? It…
Twenty-Seventh Texas Cavalry · 14.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
The Twenty-seventh Texas Cavalry, organized in March of 1862, was a conglomerate of new companies added to four preexisting units from the Fourth Texas Cavalry Battalion. The regiment was also known as Whitfield's…
Shiloh Baptist Church · 14.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Shiloh Baptist Church, a congregation founded way back on November 2nd, 1854. Imagine, 18 charter members gathered under brush arbors for services and revivals. They moved between two…
Garfield, TX (Travis County) · 14.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Garfield, Texas, just southeast of Austin. This community sprang up around 1880, likely named for President James A. Garfield, who was in office when its post office opened in 1881. By 1902, the…
Christ Lutheran Church · 14.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Christ Lutheran Church, originally founded by Wendish Lutheran families in the mid-1880s near Hochkirk. Pastor Gotthilf Birkmann officiated early services, and Peter Zieschang donated…
The Mountain Division That Got Its Name in Bastrop County · 14.8 mi
The Tenth Mountain Division Memorial Highway is a loop. It runs on U.S. Two Ninety from Interstate Thirty Five to State Highway Ninety Five, down Highway Ninety Five to State Highway Seventy One, and back along Seventy…
William Pfluger Home · 14.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the home of William Pfluger, a German immigrant and Confederate veteran who settled here in 1871. He built this limestone house in 1875, later adding a frame section. Pfluger was a rancher who also…
Hutto Cemetery · 14.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Hutto Cemetery, which started as Elmwood Cemetery in the late 1800s. The earliest marked grave here is from 1887. Over the years, it was sold and renamed, and today it holds the stories of settlers,…
Bill Pickett Comes Home · 14.9 mi
That bronze cowboy at the corner of Main and Second, lasso in hand and wearing chaps, is Bill Pickett, and he took the long way home. Pickett, the son of former slaves, came to Taylor with his family in the late…
The Farmer Who Lost Everything and Got a Town · 14.9 mi
The hard-to-spell name on the signs around you traces back to one stubborn German farmer. Henry Pfluger Sr. had been a prosperous landowner in Germany until the revolutions of 1848 swept across the German states and…
The Town That Put a Pf on Everything · 14.9 mi
Somewhere along the way, this town decided that the awkward German Pf at the front of its name was not a burden but a brand. Outsiders stumble over Pflugerville, but locals lean all the way in, slapping that silent Pf…
The Pflugerville Boy Who Vaccinated Texas · 14.9 mi
One of the most consequential people ever born in this German farm town never gets a marker on the highway, but his work touched nearly everyone in Texas. Sidney William Bohls was born here on April 12, 1898, into the…
The Cathedral of Smoke on Second Street · 14.9 mi
If one building tells Taylor's story in soot, it's Louie Mueller Barbecue at 206 West 2nd Street. The brick building dates to 1900 and lived earlier lives as a grocery market and a gymnasium for golden-glove boxing and…
Pflugerville - Henry Pfluger and the German Refugee Founding · 14.9 mi · Web Research
The name on the sign is a mouthful, and that mouthful tells the whole story. Pflugerville is named for Henry Pfluger Senior, a German farmer from Hesse who had been wealthy back home until the revolutions of eighteen…
The Railroad That Came Close Enough · 14.9 mi
For a young farm town, a railroad meant survival, and Pflugerville got one in 1904 when the Missouri-Kansas-Texas line, the storied Katy, finished its track between Georgetown and Austin. But the rails did not run…
From Mercantile to Music Hall on Main Street · 14.9 mi
If you want a building that has lived through nearly all of Pflugerville's history, pull up at Hanovers Draught Haus at 108 East Main Street in the old downtown. The structure dates back to the early 1900s, right around…
Pflugerville - The Silent P That Won't Die · 14.9 mi · Web Research
Pflugerville has a silent P at the front of its name, courtesy of its German founders, and the town has decided to lean into that silent P with both hands. The city's official tourism brand is Pfun TX. The weekly…
The Water Park That Changed Its Name Midstream · 14.9 mi
The big water park out near the intersection of State Highway 130 and FM 685 marks how completely Pflugerville flipped from cotton town to suburb. The city cut a development deal in 2013 to bring in a Hawaiian Falls…
Taylor National Bank · 14.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the old Taylor National Bank building, designed by A. O. Watson and completed in 1894. This striking red sandstone structure, a blend of Romanesque and Renaissance Revival styles, was home to the…
Houston Family Cemetery · 14.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Houston Family Cemetery, established around 1835. It's recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery.
Tex Avery · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Taylor, the birthplace of Tex Avery, a true giant of animation! Born here in 1908, Avery went on to direct legendary characters like Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck at Warner Brothers and MGM. He…
The Three-Story Gin That Ran for a Century · 15.0 mi
The tall wooden building near 136 East Pecan Street is the last machine that explains why this town exists. Otto Pfluger built the Pflugerville Gin Company here in 1904, a three-story cotton gin that turned the…
The working facility, not a set · 15.0 mi
In the 2003 film the plant is where the surviving character flees and is pursued through the cutting floor and hanging rails in the closing act. The production used the working facility rather than a built set,…
Bill Pickett · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Taylor, home of a true rodeo legend: Bill Pickett. Born around 1870, Pickett wasn't just any cowboy; he was the son of a former slave who became one of the few Black cowboys on the national…
The Largest Inland Cotton Market in the World · 15.0 mi
For decades Taylor billed itself, without much modesty, as the largest inland cotton market in the world. The boast had teeth. The town's first cotton gin opened in 1877, just a year after the tracks arrived, and from…
The Fire That Rebuilt Downtown in Brick · 15.0 mi
Taylor's downtown owes its handsome brick face to a disaster. In February 1879, only three years after the town was founded, fire tore through the young settlement's wood-frame business district. Of the 32 businesses…
The Barefoot Janitor of the Howard Theatre · 15.0 mi
Stand outside the Howard Theatre at 308 North Main Street after dark and locals will tell you the building is not entirely empty. The ghost story centers on a man named James, said to have been an elderly janitor who…
The Slaughterhouse in Taylor · 15.0 mi
The slaughterhouse sequence in the 2003 remake was filmed at the Taylor Meat Company plant at 2211 West 2nd Street in Taylor, Williamson County. The company was founded in 1947. The 1974 original had used a real feedlot…
Eikel-Prewitt Building · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're cruising past the Eikel-Prewitt Building in Taylor, a place that's seen some serious business. <break time="400ms"/> It started life in 1893, built by Albert Eikel to house his hardware company. <break…
Taylor Post Office · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Taylor, and right here is a building that served this community for decades. The first post office in this town opened way back in 1876, called Taylorsville back then. When the city officially…
Preslar-Hewitt Building · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Taylor, a town that boomed thanks to cotton and railroads. See that building up ahead? That's the Preslar-Hewitt Building, constructed in 1914 by Hugo Hunke. It was designed to be a commercial…
First Baptist Church · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Taylor, and right here is the site of the First Baptist Church, but its roots go back to 1883. That's when a young Black evangelist, Dr. L. Benjamin Toliver, held a tent revival in this very…
Louie Mueller Barbecue · 15.1 mi · Things to Do
Taylor's legendary BBQ since 1949. The soot-blackened walls tell the story.
A German Farm Town Built Around a Church and a Gin · 15.1 mi
Long before tech commuters and water parks, this was a tight German-Lutheran farming settlement, and the dates show how slowly it actually came together. Families here started a school in 1872 and built a Lutheran…
Pflugerville · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Pflugerville, a town that started as a farming settlement in the mid-1800s. German immigrant Henry Pfluger brought his family here in 1853. For years, it was just farms, with the first general store…
City of Taylor · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Taylor, a town born from the railroad. Back in 1876, the International & Great Northern Railroad laid tracks through Williamson County and platted this very spot as 'Taylorsville.' Lots went on…
The Town the Railroad Auctioned Into Existence · 15.2 mi
You're rolling into a town that was sold before it was built. In 1876 the Texas Land Company auctioned off lots here in anticipation of the International-Great Northern Railroad pushing through southeastern Williamson…
The Taylor Boy Who Gave Bugs Bunny His Attitude · 15.2 mi
One of the most influential comedians in American history never said a word on screen, because he drew everyone else's lines instead. Frederick Bean Avery, known to the world as Tex Avery, was born in Taylor on February…
Eleven Rings Started in Taylor · 15.2 mi
Few athletes in any sport have won the way K.C. Jones won, and the story starts in Taylor, where he was born on May 25, 1932, the oldest of six children. Jones became one of the great defensive guards in basketball…
The Machine That Squeezed a Bale in Half · 15.2 mi
The cotton compress that gave Taylor its swagger was a serious piece of industrial machinery, and it sat right against the railroad tracks for a reason. A cotton gin separates fiber from seed, but the bale it spits out…
Doak Home · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Doak Home, a ranch-style house built way back in the 1860s. But its real story starts in 1878, when Taylor's first doctor, A.V. Doak, moved in. He wasn't just a physician; he also organized the…
First Christian Church of Taylor · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Taylor, Williamson County, where a significant piece of local history stands. Look around you for the First Christian Church. It was founded way back on December 9th, 1877, with just 22 members.…
Tucker-Smith House · 15.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Tucker-Smith House in Taylor, a home that's seen quite the architectural makeover. Built in 1892 by lumberman J. E. Tucker, it first rocked the popular Queen Anne style. Then, in 1905, Decker…

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