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Gause, Texas

Everything Gause is known for

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Music in Gause

Songs About Gause

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Artists From Gause

R
Ruthie Foster
blues

Rivers & Roads in Song near Gause

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

Brazos River 43 songs Kickapoo Creek 4 songs Interstate 35 45 songs

Musical Heritage

The Singer Who Walked Away From Atlantic Records RoadyGoat

1978

Gause has a Grammy winner. Ruthie Foster grew up here in a family of gospel singers, and by fourteen she was a soloist in the hometown choir. She joined the Navy to see the world and ended up singing in a Navy band called Pride. After that came New York, and Atlantic Records offered her a recording deal. Then, in nineteen ninety-three, her mother fell ill. Foster left New York and the deal behind and came home to Texas. She took a job running a camera at a television station in College Station while she cared for her mother, who died in nineteen ninety-six. A year later, Foster put out her own album, Full Circle. Blues fans noticed. The Grammy nominations followed, and on February second, twenty twenty-five, she finally won one, Best Contemporary Blues Album, for a record called Mileage.

RoadyGoat →

Two Last Shows at the Skyline RoadyGoat

Johnny Horton's death on the highway through Milano closed a strange circle that started at one Austin honky tonk. The Skyline Club sat on the old Dallas Highway, the road Austin now calls North Lamar Boulevard. On December nineteenth, nineteen fifty two, Hank Williams made his last public appearance there. On New Year's Day, nineteen fifty three, Hank died in the back seat of his Cadillac on the way to a show in Canton, Ohio. He was twenty nine. Horton knew Hank from the Louisiana Hayride, and in September nineteen fifty three he married Hank's widow, Billie Jean. On November fourth, nineteen sixty, Horton played his own last show at that same Skyline Club. A few hours later his Cadillac was hit head on in Milano, and he did not survive. Billie Jean was twenty eight, and a widow for the second time. One account adds one more turn: on New Year's Day, nineteen fifty three, Horton was driving through Milano when he heard on the radio that Hank was gone.

RoadyGoat → · 9.6 mi away

The Gig He Tried to Skip RoadyGoat

Johnny Horton did not want to play the show that put him on the road through Milano. It was November fourth, nineteen sixty, at the Skyline Club in Austin, and he tried to get out of it and could not. By one account, his manager, Tillman Franks, had booked the date with the club's owner only four days earlier, and promised Horton, who hated playing rooms that served beer and whiskey, that it would be the last time. That same account says Horton had other invitations, to the premiere of the John Wayne movie North to Alaska and to a disc jockey convention in Nashville. Horton had long believed a drunk would kill him, so between sets he stayed in the dressing room, away from the bar. He played to a sellout crowd. Then he loaded his equipment into the trunk of his Cadillac and took the wheel himself, headed east on Highway seventy nine toward Shreveport, where he planned to go duck hunting with his friend Claude King in the morning. The drive ended here, in Milano.

RoadyGoat → · 9.6 mi away

The Two Men Who Lived RoadyGoat

Two other men were in Johnny Horton's Cadillac when it was hit in Milano in November nineteen sixty, and both of them lived. Up front was Tillman Franks, Horton's manager and bass player. Franks had played bass on the very first Louisiana Hayride, in April nineteen forty eight, and he wrote Horton's first number one hit, When It's Springtime in Alaska. By one account he was still recovering from surgery, and his wife had begged him not to go. In the back seat was guitarist Tommy Tomlinson. Franks came out of the wreck with head injuries. Tomlinson's leg was so badly hurt that it later had to be amputated. Horton had told the people closest to him that if he died, he would try to get in touch. Franks believed he did. He told the writer Colin Escott that one night, driving to Nashville with the singer David Houston, a dead CB radio came to life and played Horton's early hit, One Woman Man, all the way through, then went silent again. Tomlinson died in nineteen eighty two. Franks lived until two thousand six.

RoadyGoat → · 9.6 mi away

Five Days Before North to Alaska RoadyGoat

When Johnny Horton died near Milano in November nineteen sixty, a John Wayne movie was about to open with his voice. Horton had sung the title song for North to Alaska. He had done movie songs before, but this was the first one played over a film's opening titles. It was written by Mike Phillips with Tillman Franks, Horton's manager, who was riding in the car with him that night and survived. Horton died on November fifth, five days before the movie was released, so he never saw what the song did next. North to Alaska went to number one on Billboard's country singles chart and number four on the Hot one hundred, and it sold a million records. Members of the Western Writers of America later picked it as one of the top one hundred western songs of all time. And that low bass part on the record is not Horton. It was sung by Rusty Goodman.

RoadyGoat → · 9.6 mi away

History of Gause

Two Species, One Jar RoadyGoat

1932

This town is named for William J. Gause, a settler who came here in eighteen seventy-two. But there's another Gause worth knowing, no relation. Georgy Gause was a young biologist in Moscow, born in nineteen ten. In the early nineteen thirties, he set up a simple contest. Two kinds of single-celled creatures, both Paramecium, fed the same food, with fresh water added every day. Each did fine on its own. Together, one species pulled ahead at first, but the other came back and drove it to extinction. Gause published the idea in nineteen thirty-two, and it became known as the competitive exclusion principle. Two species that need exactly the same things can't share one place forever. The slightly better one wins, and the other disappears from that spot. Then Gause turned that idea of microbes fighting each other into medicine. He isolated an antibiotic called gramicidin S, and during World War Two it went into mass production and saved many lives.

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The Tribe That Bought Its Mountain Back RoadyGoat

1855

Up the road from Gause, a cone of red sandstone rises over the bottomland where the Little River meets the Brazos. Locals call it Sugarloaf Mountain. The Tonkawa call it Natan Samox, Red Mountain, and their Wolf Dance tells of the first Tonkawa person coming out of the foot of that hill. In eighteen eighty-four, the Tonkawa were moved out of Texas to Oklahoma, after earlier forced moves in eighteen fifty-five and eighteen fifty-nine. A tribal elder named Don Patterson found his way back to the mountain in the nineteen eighties. A local real estate man, Dave Cunningham, spent some thirty years trying to protect it. Then, on December twelfth, twenty twenty-three, the Herzog family, who had owned it since the nineteen nineties, sold the sixty acres to the Tonkawa Tribe. They closed the deal by the swimming pool, then went inside for enchiladas and Texas sheet cake. The tribe's president, Russ Martin, said it in two words. We're home. In April twenty twenty-five, the tribe held its first powwow at the mountain in more than a century.

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Thirty Inches in June RoadyGoat

In June of 1899 the sky opened over central Texas. Hearne, just up the road from here, took more than thirty inches of rain in that single month. The Brazos climbed past every gauge it had, drowned something like twelve thousand square miles, killed at least 284 people and did more than nine million dollars in damage. It remains the most disastrous flood ever recorded in this valley. Robertson County was among the hardest hit, and the little railroad that made this junction a place was very nearly wiped out.

RoadyGoat → · 6.3 mi away

Sugarloaf Mountain

1790

SUGARLOAF MOUNTAIN SUGARLOAF MOUNTAIN IS LOCATED NEAR THE CONFLUENCE OF LITTLE RIVER AND BRAZOS RIVER AND IS CAPPED WITH RED SANDSTONE ROCK. A LARGE AMERICAN INDIAN GROUP LIVED IN A VILLAGE KNOWN AS RANCHERIA GRANDE DE LOS ERVIPIAME. REMNANTS OF TWENTY-TWO NATIONS COMPRISED THE GROUP, BUT THE ERVIPIAME WERE THE DOMINANT MEMBERS. SOME OF THE ERVIPIAME LATER ENTERED THE SAN ANTONIO MISSIONS, BUT MOST JOINED THE TONKAWA, MAYEYE AND YOJUANE TRIBES. EARLY AMERICAN SETTLERS LEARNED OF THE INDIAN TRAILS AND USED THEM WHEN TRAVELING. SUGARLOAF MOUNTAIN WAS AN IMPORTANT LANDMARK ON THE OLD ROAD SYSTEM, LATER IDENTIFIED AS PART OF EL CAMINO REAL OR “THE KING’S HIGHWAY,” AND WAS USED UNTIL 1790. DURING THE 1820s, A SIMILAR ROUTE WAS USED THAT TRAVELED FROM SAN FELIPE TO THE WACO INDIAN VILLAGE, WHICH LATER BECAME WACO. IN 1866, TEXAS GOVERNOR J.W. THROCKMORTON SENT A LETTER TO THE DEPARTMENT OF INDIAN AFFAIRS GRANTING THE TONKAWA PEOPLE A LEAGUE OF LAND IN THE AREA, BUT THEY WERE ALREADY RELOCATED TO OKLAHOMA IN THE 1850s AND NEVER RECEIVED THEIR LAND. DEVELOPERS JAMES JACKSON AND JON HOLLOWAY PURCHASED THE LAND THAT CONTAINED SUGARLOAF MOUNTAIN WHICH THEY DIVIDED AND RESOLD. DURING THIS TIME, THE TOP OF THE MOUNTAIN WAS REMOVED BECAUSE IT WAS BELIEVED TO HOLD TREASURES BUT AFTER PUBLIC OUTCRY, THE DIGGING STOPPED. THE MOUNTAIN IS RECOGNIZED BY MILAM COUNTY, THE STATE OF TEXAS AND THE NATIONAL PARKS SERVICE AS AN IMPORTANT LANDMARK. MANY FROM THE TONKAWA NATIVE AMERICAN TRIBE BELIEVE THAT SUGARLOAF MOUNTAIN IS THE SITE OF THE ORIGINS OF THEIR PEOPLE. IN 2004, EL CAMINO REAL DE LOS TEJAS WAS DESIGNATED AS A NATIONAL HISTORIC TRAIL IN TEXAS.

Historical Marker →

Nashville

1835

Surveyed in the fall of 1835 as the capital of Robertson's colony. Named for Nashville, Tennessee where Sterling C. Robertson and many of his colonists had formerly lived. Seat of justice Milam municipality, 1836; Milam County, 1837. First home in Texas of George C. Childress, chairman of the committee who drafted the Texas Declaration of Independence.

Historical Marker → · 4.9 mi away

The Town of Gause

1872

William J. Gause (1829-1914), born in Alabama, moved to Texas in 1849, to the Brazos region in 1856, and to this locality in 1872. Buying lumber in Montgomery, he gave his friend Dan Fowler half in return for hauling it here. The two built the first homes in this settlement. In 1873, Gause gave right of way and 100 acres of land to the International & Great Northern Railroad, and the town was platted. Gause Post Office opened in 1874, with James S. Reynolds as postmaster. The I. G. N. freighted out great quantities of cotton, and the town thrived. Cotton gins, stores, blacksmith shops, a lumber yard, a bank, hotels, livery stables, a newspaper and other businesses were established. Besides W. J. Gause, civic leaders included Dr. J. E. Brown, Richard Cox, Dr. James dollar, Lafayette Ely, Bill Faubian, Dan Fowler, J. C. Lister, C. C. Moore, Dr. John Porter, Frank Thomas, and T. L. Watts. Churches were organized and a Masonic Lodge chartered. The county's first independent school was established in Gause. Good highways, mechanized farming, and decline of railroading halted commerce in the town of Guase. It survives, however, as a residential site chosen by descendants of the pioneers and by commuters of industrial plants and businesses in this vicinity.

Historical Marker →

Gause, TX

1872

Gause is on U.S. Highway 79 and the Missouri Pacific line sixteen miles southeast of Cameron in eastern Milam County. It was named for William J. Gause, who moved to the area in 1872 and built a home out of lumber hauled from Montgomery. In 1873 he gave right-of-way and 100 acres to the International-Great Northern Railroad, and the town of Gause grew rapidly. A schoolhouse, which doubled as a church, was built there in 1876. By 1884 Gause had steam cotton gins, grist and saw mills, two churches, and 300 residents. Area farmers shipped cotton, cottonseed oil, and corn. The Gause Independent School District, which was established in 1905, was the first such district in Milam County. The town reached its peak of prosperity around 1915 with an estimated population of 1,000. Gause began to decline in the 1920s. Its bank, which had been in operation since 1910, was discontinued in 1927. The number of businesses dropped from twenty in the early 1940s to four in the 1960s. Mechanized farming, improved highways, and the declining importance of the railroad contributed to a decrease in commercial activity in Gause. The town's population fell from 750 in the 1940s to 278 by the late 1960s and 210 by the early 1970s. This downward trend was reversed in the late 1980s as more people chose to live in Gause and commute to jobs in nearby industrial plants. In the early 1990s Gause reported 400 residents and eight businesses. The population remained the same in 2000, though only four businesses were reported.

Tsha Handbook →

Hearne, TX

1858

Hearne is on the Missouri Pacific and the Southern Pacific railroads, U.S. highways 79 and 190, and State Highway 6, twelve miles southwest of Franklin and nine miles south of Calvert in southwestern Robertson County. It is on land originally granted to José Francisco Ruiz , Mexican commander of Fort Tenoxtitlán in 1830. In the 1840s Code Brown operated a tavern and stage stop in the area. Passengers traveling between Houston and Port Sullivan stopped there for refreshments, and the tavern functioned as the local post office and general store. During the 1850s Robertson County grew rapidly. The Hearnes, gentlemen planters of the Old South, moved in 1852 to the region, where they acquired 10,000 acres. There they operated large cotton plantations. In 1858 Christopher C. Hearne, determined to construct a railroad through the county, offered railroad promoters right-of-way and townsite land. However, the Civil War erupted before the railroad reached Hearne's plantation, and work halted. Eventually, Hearne's widow deeded 700 acres to the Houston and Texas Central Railway. Railroad construction resumed in 1867 and finally arrived at the new Hearne depot in April 1868. Soon large homes, a hotel, general stores, several saloons (initially housed in tents), and a drugstore lined the streets of Hearne. Soon thereafter churches organized, a Masonic hall was built, and Daniel Brady established a cotton gin. A post office opened in 1869. In 1870 the International-Great Northern negotiated a right-of-way across Robertson County on an east-west axis. The two lines intersected at Hearne. The cotton gins and two railroads established Hearne as the regional center for cotton marketing. The town incorporated in 1871 and in 1885 had four churches, schools, two gristmill-cotton gins, two hotels, and a newspaper, the Hearne Enterprise . The Hearne Democrat was published by J. Felton Lane in 1911. The population grew from 1,300 in 1885 to 2,129 by 1900 and 3,511 in 1940. German prisoners of war were housed at a camp built just west of the Hearne city limits in 1942. The camp housed up to 8,000 men, and the first prisoners arrived early in 1943. The facility closed in 1946. By the 1960s Hearne had an airstrip and businesses involved in manufacturing and agricultural industries. In 1991 it had a factory that manufactured steel tanks and cotton gin machinery, a vitreous sanitary ware plant, an oil mill, and a door factory. In addition, the town served as a terminal for the distribution of petroleum products, operated dehydration facilities, and was a regional center for the marketing of cotton and other agricultural products. The population in 1990 was 5,132; in 2000 it was 4,690.

Tsha Handbook → · 9.8 mi away

Milano, TX

1874

Milano is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 79 and State Highway 36, twelve miles southeast of Cameron in southeastern Milam County. The International-Great Northern Railroad laid out the original site of Milano in 1874 about 1½ miles west of what is now its site. A post office opened the same year, and a Baptist church was soon established; the community became a voting precinct in 1880. Local sources offer several possibilities for the origin of the name. One story suggests that the town was named for Milan, Italy, because of the similarity of the climates; another says that the name was to have been Milam, but the Post Office Department either got it wrong or changed it intentionally because a Milam, Texas, already existed. When the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway built the section of track between Brenham and Belton in 1881, it established the town of Milano Junction at its intersection with the International-Great Northern, less than two miles east of Milano. As the focus of local social and economic life gradually shifted to the new town, Milano became known as Old Milano and Milano Junction became Milano. By the 1880s Milano was a commercial center with 500 residents and served as a shipping point for cotton and hides produced in the area. Truck farming became an important industry for Milano in the 1920s, with tomatoes, watermelon, and cantaloupes as the principal crops. Milano reached a peak in 1939, when 920 residents were reported there. The number of residents began to decline in the early 1940s and fell to a low of 380 by the early 1970s before beginning to grow again in the late 1970s. When Milano was incorporated in the early 1980s, it had 468 residents; its population was reported as 495 in 1988 and 408 in 1990. By 2000 the population was 400.

Tsha Handbook → · 9.6 mi away

Things to Do in Gause

historical 13.8 mi away
The Yellow Fever Train

On September 3 1873 a young man named W.F. Hughes stepped off a train from Shreveport and checked into a Calvert hotel. Two days later he fell ill. Within a…
historical 13.7 mi away
Reconstruction on the Brazos

During Reconstruction Calvert became a flashpoint for racial politics in Texas. African Americans supported by White Republican allies briefly exercised real…
historical 13.7 mi away
When Calvert Was Fourth in Texas

It is hard to believe today but Calvert was once the fourth-largest city in Texas with 10000 residents. Cotton money railroad connections and a strategic…
historical 13.9 mi away
The Largest Cotton Gin in the World

In 1871 tiny Calvert Texas claimed to have the largest cotton gin on the entire planet. The town had exploded after the Houston and Texas Central Railway…
quirky 13.9 mi away
A Victorian Museum That Nobody Planned

Calvert is now the fourth largest historic district in Texas and nobody planned it that way. When the cotton money dried up and the population drained away the…
historical 9.7 mi away
The Lone Grave

A single 1911 grave of formerly enslaved woman Hollie Tatnell sits in the median of Wheelock Street and is the last remnant of a Black cemetery whose other…
historical 13.6 mi away
Fire and Flood

Calvert took a one-two punch at the turn of the century that would have killed most towns. In 1899 devastating floods swept through the Brazos River valley…
quirky 13.7 mi away
The Laughing Ghost

Calverts historic district has more than Victorian architecture to offer. One downtown store is said to be haunted by the ghost of a woman who can be heard…

Everything Near Gause

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

  • The Singer Who Walked Away From Atlantic Records

    Gause has a Grammy winner. Ruthie Foster grew up here in a family of gospel singers, and by fourteen she was a soloist in the hometown choir. She joined the Navy to see the world and ended up singing in a Navy band…

  • Two Species, One Jar

    This town is named for William J. Gause, a settler who came here in eighteen seventy-two. But there's another Gause worth knowing, no relation. Georgy Gause was a young biologist in Moscow, born in nineteen ten. In the…

  • The Town of Gause · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker

    William J. Gause (1829-1914), born in Alabama, moved to Texas in 1849, to the Brazos region in 1856, and to this locality in 1872. Buying lumber in Montgomery, he gave his friend Dan Fowler half in return for hauling it…

  • Gause, TX · 0.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Gause is on U.S. Highway 79 and the Missouri Pacific line sixteen miles southeast of Cameron in eastern Milam County. It was named for William J. Gause, who moved to the area in 1872 and built a home out of lumber…

  • The Tribe That Bought Its Mountain Back · 2.7 mi

    Up the road from Gause, a cone of red sandstone rises over the bottomland where the Little River meets the Brazos. Locals call it Sugarloaf Mountain. The Tonkawa call it Natan Samox, Red Mountain, and their Wolf Dance…

  • Sugarloaf Mountain · 2.7 mi · Historical Marker

    SUGARLOAF MOUNTAIN SUGARLOAF MOUNTAIN IS LOCATED NEAR THE CONFLUENCE OF LITTLE RIVER AND BRAZOS RIVER AND IS CAPPED WITH RED SANDSTONE ROCK. A LARGE AMERICAN INDIAN GROUP LIVED IN A VILLAGE KNOWN AS RANCHERIA GRANDE DE…

  • Pin Oak Cemetery · 3.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving near the Pin Oak Cemetery, established in 1896 but with burials dating back to 1861. This ground served the Pin Oak Settlement and surrounding communities, many of whom were farmers who arrived by the…

  • Nashville · 4.9 mi · Historical Marker

    Surveyed in the fall of 1835 as the capital of Robertson's colony. Named for Nashville, Tennessee where Sterling C. Robertson and many of his colonists had formerly lived. Seat of justice Milam municipality, 1836; Milam…

  • Thirty Inches in June · 6.3 mi

    In June of 1899 the sky opened over central Texas. Hearne, just up the road from here, took more than thirty inches of rain in that single month. The Brazos climbed past every gauge it had, drowned something like twelve…

  • Named for Two Sets of Rails · 6.3 mi

    There is a reason the name is so literal. In 1891 a group of Robertson County cotton farmers and merchants chartered their own railroad, the Hearne and Brazos Valley, and by 1892 they had sixteen miles of track running…

  • One Locomotive, Three Cars · 6.3 mi

    This was a farmers' railroad in the most literal sense. Local cotton growers and merchants put up one hundred thousand dollars in capital stock to build it, because moving bales out of the Brazos bottoms by wagon was…

  • A Junction With Nothing to Join · 6.3 mi

    The flood killed this place, but slowly. When the Hearne and Brazos Valley rebuilt through 1900 and 1901, the engineers moved the line, running it from Glass to Stone City and pushing a new stretch from Glass into…

Show all 200 nearby places
  • Port Sullivan · 6.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Maysfield, and just up ahead was once Port Sullivan, a vital hub in early Texas. Established in 1835 by Augustus W. Sullivan, this spot was a major crossroads. The Austin-East Texas and…

  • Port Sullivan Cemetery · 6.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Port Sullivan Cemetery, the last vestige of a town that once boomed. Back in 1851, Reuben Anderson spurred development here, and the town of Port Sullivan grew to over a thousand residents, boasting…

  • Macedonia Hix Baptist Church · 7.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Macedonia Hix Baptist Church, a congregation with roots stretching back to the 1840s. Traveling ministers held services here even before the church was officially organized around 1852.…

  • Two Counts, Forty-Six Years Apart · 7.5 mi

    In 1942 this was still a going concern. Half a dozen businesses, at least two dozen houses, all of it hanging off a railroad stop south of Hearne. Somebody counted again in 1988 and found a few farms and some scattered…

  • It Existed Because The Train Stopped · 7.5 mi

    Five miles south of Hearne, out in the flat farm country running down toward the Brazos bottom, the Texas and New Orleans Railroad kept a stop called Nicholas. That was the whole reason there was anything here. A…

  • Greater Riverside Cemetery · 9.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Greater Riverside Cemetery, the final resting place for Hearne's African-American community since 1894. Originally called the New Colored Cemetery, it was known by many names before becoming…

  • From Hearne High to the Pro Football Hall of Fame · 9.2 mi

    One of the most relentless pass-rushers in NFL history learned his football at Hearne High School. John Randle, born in 1967 and raised in nearby Mumford, played his high school ball here before a long, unlikely climb…

  • Westbrook-Walker Cemetery · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Westbrook-Walker Cemetery. (One-fourth miles southeast) Georgia native Ervin Westbrook and his wife Rachel McCorra Walker left their Mississippi farm for Texas in 1858. They were joined by Rachel's…

  • Milano, TX · 9.6 mi

    On November 5, 1960, country music singer Johnny Horton was killed by a drunk driver on Highway 79 near Milano on his way home from a performance at the Skyline Club in Austin.

  • The Town Sold to Seven Thousand People · 9.6 mi

    Somewhere along Highway Seventy-Nine east of Milano is a town that thousands of people owned, and almost nobody ever saw. In eighteen seventy seven, a Cincinnati outfit called the Texas Land and Colonization Company…

  • The Milano Diamond: An Engineering Crossroads · 9.6 mi

    The heart of Milano isn't a town square; it's a piece of railway engineering called a 'diamond.' If you could see the tracks from above, you'd watch the Union Pacific's east-west line — the old International-Great…

  • The Deputy Who Met Bill Longley · 9.6 mi

    On a Sunday morning in November eighteen seventy six, a Milam County deputy riding home to Milano offered to keep three strangers company. His name was Matt Shelton, and he was about sixty-two years old. He was coming…

  • The Day the Storm Found the Junction · 9.6 mi

    On an April afternoon in eighteen eighty three, the same storm system that had struck Belton dropped back down south of Cameron and headed for Milano Junction. It was about a quarter past four on April twenty-seventh.…

  • Texas Had a Treasurer Named Jesse James · 9.6 mi

    For almost thirty-six years, the man in charge of the Texas treasury was named Jesse James. He was born in nineteen oh four in the Sand Grove community, just south of Milano, and grew up in Thorndale. The name was not…

  • The Rock House That Isn't Haunted · 9.6 mi

    Two miles south of Milano, an old red sandstone house has collected more ghost stories than almost anything in Milam County, and nearly all of them are false. People have said it was a hotel and a stagecoach stop. That…

  • The Battle of Apache Pass · 9.6 mi

    Before the railroads came and created towns like Milano, this land was already a highway. A few miles from here the San Gabriel River runs over a gravel bar northwest of Rockdale that Spanish explorers named Apache…

  • Two Last Shows at the Skyline · 9.6 mi

    Johnny Horton's death on the highway through Milano closed a strange circle that started at one Austin honky tonk. The Skyline Club sat on the old Dallas Highway, the road Austin now calls North Lamar Boulevard. On…

  • The Gig He Tried to Skip · 9.6 mi

    Johnny Horton did not want to play the show that put him on the road through Milano. It was November fourth, nineteen sixty, at the Skyline Club in Austin, and he tried to get out of it and could not. By one account,…

  • The Tomato Girls of Milano · 9.6 mi

    In August nineteen twelve, a group of farm girls set out jars of canned tomatoes at Milano, and made Texas history doing it. The woman behind them was Edna Westbrook Trigg, born in eighteen sixty eight between Milano…

  • The Town Almost Called Temple · 9.6 mi

    Milano sits where two railroads cross, and for a little while, one of them called this place Temple. The International and Great Northern came through first, in eighteen seventy three, and the town was christened Milam…

  • The Wall That Stood · 9.6 mi

    Milano may be named for Milan, Italy. Nobody is sure, but it gives us an excuse for this one. In Milan, at the convent of Santa Maria delle Grazie, there is an old dining hall, and on one wall of it, Leonardo da Vinci…

  • The Two Men Who Lived · 9.6 mi

    Two other men were in Johnny Horton's Cadillac when it was hit in Milano in November nineteen sixty, and both of them lived. Up front was Tillman Franks, Horton's manager and bass player. Franks had played bass on the…

  • Five Days Before North to Alaska · 9.6 mi

    When Johnny Horton died near Milano in November nineteen sixty, a John Wayne movie was about to open with his voice. Horton had sung the title song for North to Alaska. He had done movie songs before, but this was the…

  • A Doctor's Note for Whiskey · 9.6 mi

    On a bright moonlit night in August nineteen twenty two, two officers hid beside a culvert a quarter mile outside Milano, and waited. This was Prohibition. A car came along the Milano to Hanover road with its lights…

  • Why a Hat Maker Is a Milliner · 9.6 mi

    Milano may be named for Milan, Italy, and Milan gave English a job title. A milliner, a maker of women's hats, was most likely first a Milaner, someone from Milan, or a dealer in the goods Milan was famous for: straw…

  • The Bread a Doctor Prescribed · 9.6 mi

    Milano shares its name with a cookie, though the town is definitely not named for it. The Milano cookie comes from Pepperidge Farm, and Pepperidge Farm started with a sick little boy. In nineteen thirty seven, Margaret…

  • Newton, James Oscar · 9.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Milam County, near Milano, where James Oscar Newton was born in 1875. He grew up to become the Texas Adjutant General, a brigadier general, in 1907. He organized rifle teams and established rifle…

  • The Grave They Built the Street Around · 9.7 mi

    There is a grave in the middle of the street in Hearne, and it is not a legend or a misread historical marker. It is a real headstone, sitting in a grass median where Wheelock Street meets Cypress, in the five hundred…

  • Colored Graveyard in the Old Town of Hearne · 9.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Hearne, near the site of what was once the Colored Graveyard. This place served the African American residents of the area, likely starting as a farm or slave cemetery. The earliest known burial…

  • The Lone Grave · 9.7 mi · Things to Do

    A single 1911 grave of formerly enslaved woman Hollie Tatnell sits in the median of Wheelock Street and is the last remnant of a Black cemetery whose other…

  • New Hope Missionary Baptist Church · 9.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of New Hope Missionary Baptist Church, a cornerstone of the Teals Prairie community for over a century. Organized in 1870 under a brush arbor, this church wasn't just a place of worship, but…

  • Hearne, TX · 9.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Hearne is on the Missouri Pacific and the Southern Pacific railroads, U.S. highways 79 and 190, and State Highway 6, twelve miles southwest of Franklin and nine miles south of Calvert in southwestern Robertson County.…

  • Salter, Charles P. · 9.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Robertson County, and right here, in Hearne, a clever plan was hatched to help the Confederacy during the Civil War. Charles P. Salter, a wealthy planter and Confederate officer, was tasked with…

  • Townsend, William Parnell · 9.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Robertson County, Texas, a place that became a major cotton producer thanks to men like William Parnell Townsend. Townsend arrived here in 1852, and by 1860, he'd more than doubled his enslaved…

  • Westbrook Plantation · 9.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving south of Hearne, right here in Robertson County, past the site of the old Westbrook Plantation. This land was developed starting in 1858 by Lewis Whitfield Carr, who came from Mississippi. He bought up…

  • Lewis, Charles · 9.8 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Robertson County, and right here in Hearne, you're passing through a town that owes a lot to planter and legislator Charles Lewis. Lewis first came to Texas in 1852, eventually settling in…

  • She Turned Down the Deal and It Cost Her Everything but the Truth · 9.9 mi

    There is a movie about what happened in this town. It is called American Violet, it came out in 2009 with Alfre Woodard and Nicole Beharie in it, and it renames Hearne as a fictional town called Melody. Everything else…

  • The Cadillac Coming Down the Pin Oak Road · 9.9 mi

    Between Hearne and Wheelock there used to be a settlement called Pin Oak, and in 1899 a girl named Rosie Lee Moore was born there, the oldest daughter in a family of fourteen children. She married young and stayed…

  • Twenty Arrests, a Hundred Dollars a Head, and a Bag of Baking Soda · 9.9 mi

    The Hearne drug sweep of November 2000 did not fall apart because of good police work. It fell apart because of a polygraph. Twenty-eight people were arrested here that month, twenty-seven of them Black, most of them…

  • The Afrika Korps in Hearne · 9.9 mi

    Just outside of Hearne, hidden in the woods, are the ruins of a different time. During World War Two this quiet Texas town became an unlikely home to nearly 5,000 German prisoners of war. Camp Hearne, built just west of…

  • Engineering the Crossroads · 9.9 mi

    The town of Hearne is fundamentally a product of 19th-century civil engineering. It exists because of a precisely calculated intersection on a map. Imagine the challenge in the late 1860s. Surveyors for the Houston &…

  • Mumford, Population One Hundred Fifty · 9.9 mi

    When John Randle went into the Pro Football Hall of Fame in two thousand ten, one of the first things he did was thank his hometown: Mumford, Texas, population one hundred fifty. A no-stoplight town, he called it. John…

  • The Crossroads · 9.9 mi

    Hearne, Texas calls itself "The Crossroads," and it earned that nickname the honest way — by being one. In the late 1860s, the Houston and Texas Central Railway pushed north through this flat stretch of Robertson…

  • The German POW Camp on the Edge of Town · 9.9 mi

    North of town off Camp Hearne Road sits the ground where, for three years, thousands of enemy soldiers lived in the middle of Texas. The Army built Camp Hearne in 1942 on a tract of roughly 700 acres, and the first…

  • Rommel's Surrendered Orchestra Played a Stadium-Seat Theater Built by Prisoners · 9.9 mi

    Here is the detail about Camp Hearne that nobody believes at first: a German military orchestra surrendered along with Rommel's Afrika Korps in North Africa, and a chunk of it ended up playing concerts in a prison camp…

  • The Pocket Calculator Was Co-Invented by a Hearne Kid · 9.9 mi

    Every cheap calculator on Earth traces part of its DNA back to a man born right here in Hearne. Jerry Merryman came into the world in Hearne on June 17, 1932, and grew into one of those rare engineers who could see a…

  • Still Public School Champions · 9.9 mi

    In March of two thousand thirteen, the boys from Mumford High School walked into the Frank Erwin Center in Austin with thirty nine wins and one loss. Across the floor in the state final was Triple A Academy from…

  • The Planter Who Gave the Railroad His Land and His Name · 9.9 mi

    The town under your wheels carries the name of a family that bet everything on a railroad. The Hearnes were planters who came into Texas from Alabama, settled first up at Wheelock, then spread out across the rich Brazos…

  • The Camp Where the POWs Ran the Mail and One Man Paid for Speaking Out · 9.9 mi

    Camp Hearne held a strange power over every German prisoner in America. Starting in 1944 it ran the central POW postal service, the clearinghouse that sorted and distributed mail to German prisoners held in camps all…

  • The Dulcimer Virtuoso Born in Hearne · 9.9 mi

    Hearne gave the music world an unlikely virtuoso of one of America's quietest instruments. David Schnaufer was born here on September 28, 1952, before his family moved to the Gulf Coast, and he grew up to become the man…

  • Cotton Country on the Brazos · 9.9 mi

    Mumford grew up in a plantation area on the east bank of the Brazos River, in the far southeastern corner of Robertson County. The county's Brazos Bottom holds about one hundred fifty thousand acres of fertile delta…

  • The Half Billion Dollar Rail Yard · 9.9 mi

    North of the Mumford school, just off Farm to Market Fifty, is a rail yard that was supposed to be the biggest thing Union Pacific ever built in one place. Work started in January two thousand eighteen. Brazos Yard…

  • Fifty Years of Mary's Secret Enchilada Sauce · 9.9 mi

    If you're hungry in downtown Hearne, the move is El Alamo Cafe at 206 West 3rd Street, a Tex-Mex institution that has fed this town since 1972. It's the work of one woman, Mary, who opened the place more than fifty…

  • Dinner in the Old Post Office · 9.9 mi

    The building that houses the Pony Express Bar and Grill in downtown Hearne has been serving the public a lot longer than the restaurant has. Put up in 1941, the structure spent roughly half a century as the town's post…

  • Hearne, TX · 9.9 mi

    Hearne owes its existence to the iron horse. Before the railroads, this part of Robertson County was mostly farmland, dotted with small settlements. But when the Houston and Texas Central Railway pushed its way north in…

  • Five Hundred Fifty, Then the River · 9.9 mi

    In the eighteen nineties, Mumford was going places. By eighteen ninety three this little river town had a lumberyard, a brick kiln, a broom factory, two saloons, two barbershops and two drugstores. In eighteen ninety…

  • Allen, Robert Cyrus · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Hearnewood, a Victorian home built in 1900. Robert Cyrus Allen, a prominent merchant and banker, had this house constructed as a wedding present for his bride. Allen was also instrumental in…

  • Adams-White Place · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Adams-White Place, built in 1896 by Horatio Adams, a notable citizen who worked in public relations in Washington D.C. The contractor was A.A. White. After 1911, it became known as the Dr. John…

  • City of Hearne · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising past Hearne, a town that owes its start to a railroad and a promise. It all began on land granted back in 1830 to Francisco Ruiz. The real push started with S. Code Brown, who ran a tavern, store, and…

  • The Band With No Sons · 9.9 mi

    The most famous Mumford in music is a band, and it has nothing to do with this town. In December two thousand seven, four musicians in London formed a folk rock group and called it Mumford and Sons. Nobody's father was…

  • St. Phillips Episcopal · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're passing St. Phillips Episcopal Church in Hearne. Two families, the Wadsworths and the Wilkerson, moved here from Matagorda and founded this church back in 1871. It was named for the Rev. J. W. Philips, who…

  • First Baptist Church of Hearne · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the First Baptist Church of Hearne, a congregation that's been a cornerstone of this community for over a century. It all began on April 18th, 1869, with just eleven charter members, originally…

  • A Century of the Methodist Church · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Hearne, where Methodism has been a cornerstone for over a century. The church here organized way back in November of 1870. In 1885, they built their first church right on this spot. Fast forward…

  • Ebenezer Hearne Cemetery · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Ebenezer Hearne Cemetery, a landmark from pioneer days. This is where Ebenezer Hearne, who lived from 1817 to 1869, and his wife Minerva are buried, along with their daughter Icephena and several…

  • A Depot Grand Enough to Match the Junction · 10.0 mi

    By 1901 Hearne had earned a depot that looked the part. The Houston and Texas Central and the International and Great Northern, the two lines whose crossing built this town, jointly put up a substantial passenger…

  • Allen Hardware Store · 10.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Hearne, and right here is the Allen Hardware Store, built way back in 1872. Originally bought from the railroad company, this place has seen a lot of owners. But R.A. Allen took over in 1891, and…

  • Johnny Horton's Last Ride · 10.2 mi

    In the early morning hours of the fifth of November, nineteen sixty, country star Johnny Horton, the voice of The Battle of New Orleans, was driving east through Milano, headed home to Shreveport after a show at the…

  • Fort Tenoxtitlan · 10.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Burleson County, not far from where the Mexican government tried to put the brakes on American expansion. In July of 1830, they established Fort Tenoxtitlan right here, naming it after the ancient…

  • Williams-Atkinson Homestead · 10.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Williams-Atkinson Homestead, built in 1893. Thomas Williams planned this Folk Victorian home, but died before it was finished. His wife, Emma, completed the house and ran the farm, while their…

  • The Founding Family Rests Where the Land Company Gave Ten Acres · 10.5 mi

    If you want to find the family the whole town is named for, follow the surnames carved in stone. Norwood Cemetery in Hearne holds the Hearne family plot, including George Washington Hearne, who lived from 1828 to 1881,…

  • Norwood Cemetery · 10.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Norwood Cemetery, a resting place for many in Hearne. The oldest marked grave here is from <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1870</say-as>, belonging to Mary Stroud Bolton. But local stories…

  • Brazos Manufacturing Company, C. S. A. · 10.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Hearne, Texas, where back in 1863, a massive effort was underway to supply the Confederacy. Look for the marker telling about the Brazos Manufacturing Company. Chartered by the 9th Texas Legislature,…

  • First Presbyterian Church of Maysfield · 10.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Maysfield, Texas, and right here is the site of the First Presbyterian Church, organized way back in August of 1873. It started with just nine members, including T.N. Mayes, who donated the land…

  • Maysfield United Methodist Church · 10.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Maysfield, where Methodists have been gathering for over a century and a half. They officially organized way back in 1854, meeting in a local schoolhouse. The first sanctuary was built in 1897, but…

  • Rev. Joseph P. Sneed · 11.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Maysfield area, home to Reverend Joseph P. Sneed. Born in 1804, Sneed was licensed as a Methodist minister in Tennessee way back in 1828. He first visited Texas in 1834, and by 1838, he was…

  • Goodwill Missionary Baptist Church · 11.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Cooks Point, home to the Goodwill Missionary Baptist Church. Its story begins not with a building, but with people. In 1854, enslaved families, led by A.S. Broaddus, made a grueling six-month wagon…

  • John Hobson · 12.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the resting place of John Hobson, a man who arrived in Texas in 1835 and immediately jumped into the fight for independence. He fought with Captain Jesse Billingsley at the Battle of San Jacinto, the…

  • Chriesman, Horatio · 12.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a true Texas pioneer! Horatio Chriesman arrived in 1822, long before Texas was even a republic. He served as a surveyor for Austin's Colony, fought in Indian conflicts, and even marched…

  • Steele's Store Community · 12.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising through Brazos County, passing by the site of what was once Steele's Store. It started as Mudville, a name fitting for a community often flooded by the Brazos River. But in 1855, Henry Steele built a…

  • New Providence Primitive Baptist Church · 12.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Milam County, passing the site of New Providence Primitive Baptist Church. Constituted in 1866 with just eight charter members, this church has served this rural community for over a century.…

  • Suggs Cemetery · 13.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Suggs Cemetery, a silent testament to the Black Jack community's roots. The Suggs family arrived from Georgia in the late 1860s, settling here around 1868. This land, purchased by Calvin A.…

  • Waugh Campground · 13.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Waugh Campground, a place that saw more than just Sunday sermons. Originally given to the Methodist church by the Isaac S. Addison family, this spot was named for Bishop Beverly Waugh,…

  • Alexander Thomson, Jr. · 13.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Burleson County, passing the spot where Alexander Thomson, Jr. once surveyed this land. Born in South Carolina in 1785, Thomson came to Texas in 1830, partnering with Sterling C. Robertson to…

  • Town of Chriesman · 13.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the former town of Chriesman, though its story really begins as Yellow Prairie. Settled by Alexander Thomson, Jr., a patriot and partner of Sterling C. Robertson, this community thrived…

  • Andrew (Rube) Foster · 13.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Calvert, the birthplace of Andrew "Rube" Foster, the "Father of Black Baseball." He wasn't just a star pitcher, known for his fastball and screwball, but also a brilliant manager and executive who…

  • Calvert Colored High School · 13.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Calvert Colored High School, a significant Rosenwald School built in 1929. It was one of the largest in Texas, funded by the Black community, the Rosenwald Foundation, and county…

  • The Surveyor Behind the Name on the Road Sign · 13.2 mi

    Drive a few miles out of Caldwell and you'll cross paths with the name Chriesman, stamped on a road, a cemetery, and a tiny crossroads community. It traces to Horatio Chriesman, a Virginia-born surveyor who came to…

  • Southern Plates Inside an 1800s Brick Storefront · 13.2 mi

    If you want to eat your way into old Calvert, the 1868 Landmark at 726 South Main Street is the easy answer. It sits in one of the tall 19th-century brick storefronts that make Calvert's downtown a near-perfect…

  • Wilson Chapel Cemetery · 13.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Wilson Chapel Cemetery, a testament to John Riley Sadberry's vision for the Benchley community. Sadberry, who moved here around 1896, purchased land in 1909 for a school and adjacent…

  • Site of Elmo Baptist Church · 13.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the old Elmo Baptist Church. Back in 1899, S.W. Cox kicked things off with a Sunday School at the nearby Elmo schoolhouse. Later that same year, with Reverend R.M. Crawford, a Baptist…

  • First Baptist Church of Calvert · 13.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're passing the site of Calvert's First Baptist Church, a congregation with roots stretching back to 1835. When the town of Calvert sprang up in 1868, the railroad donated land for a church building. Services were…

  • Baseball's Greatest Organizer Was Born Right Here · 13.6 mi

    One of the towering figures in American baseball history started life in Calvert. Andrew Foster, forever known as Rube Foster, was born here on September 17, 1879, the son of a presiding elder of a local Methodist…

  • Calvert, TX · 13.6 mi

    In the late 1800s, Calvert, Texas, was a bustling hub of trade and commerce. The town was named for Robert Calvert, a former Texas Representative who urged the Houston and Texas Central Railway to build through the…

  • The Judge Who Talked a Railroad Into Town · 13.6 mi

    The town under your wheels carries the name of a man who never lived to see it. Robert Calvert was born near Wartrace, Tennessee, in 1802, farmed in Alabama and Arkansas, and arrived in Robertson County in 1850,…

  • The Cotton Town That Invented the Talk Show · 13.6 mi

    The man often credited with inventing the modern talk show was a Calvert kid. John Reagan McCrary, who everyone called Tex, was born here on October 13, 1910, the son of a local cotton farmer and a pianist. Calvert was…

  • The Castle That Was Built to Be a Courthouse, and Never Was · 13.6 mi

    Looming across from the Baptist church, with its back to the old cemetery, stands a brick-red Gothic Revival pile that looks like a small castle dropped into a Texas cotton town, complete with a crenellated,…

  • Voices Around the Founder's Tomb · 13.6 mi

    After dark, Calvert's old burying grounds have a reputation. As the local legend goes, the founder himself never rests easy. Visitors to Robert Calvert's tomb have claimed to hear childish voices and a deeper male voice…

  • Fire and Flood · 13.6 mi · Things to Do

    Calvert took a one-two punch at the turn of the century that would have killed most towns. In 1899 devastating floods swept through the Brazos River valley…

  • A Railroad's Gift That Became the Town's Green Heart · 13.6 mi

    In the middle of Calvert's historic district sits a leafy square that has been public ground since the town's very first year. When the Houston and Texas Central laid out the townsite in 1868, the railroad set aside…

  • Mojo, Eighty Years Without a Grave · 13.7 mi

    For almost eighty years, a boy nobody could name stayed above ground in Calvert. He was a Black teenager, fourteen or fifteen by the old accounts, who died near town around 1923 after jumping from a train near Mud…

  • From a Sharecropper's Cabin to City Hall · 13.7 mi

    Somewhere in the countryside just outside Calvert, Tom Bradley was born in 1917, the son of sharecroppers and the grandson of slaves. His family left Texas for Los Angeles during the Great Migration, seeking…

  • Foster, Andrew [Rube] · 13.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Calvert, Texas, the birthplace of a baseball legend: Andrew 'Rube' Foster. Born here in 1879, Foster wasn't just a pitcher; he was the father of Black professional baseball. He earned his nickname…

  • The Ghost of a Texas Giant · 13.7 mi

    As you look at the ornate brick buildings lining Calvert's Main Street, try to imagine them new. In the 1870s this wasn't a sleepy town; it was one of the most important commercial centers in Texas. Cotton money flowed…

  • How Steel Rails Built a Town · 13.7 mi

    The railroad tracks you see running through Calvert are the town's literal foundation. Before 1868, the main local settlement was Sterling, a port on the Brazos River. But river travel was slow and often halted by…

  • Calvert, TX · 13.7 mi

    In 1850, Robert Calvert, a former Texas Representative and area farmer, established a plantation west of what is now the city. He was instrumental in urging the Houston and Texas Central Railway to build through the…

  • Foster, William Hendrick [Bill, Willie] · 13.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Calvert, Texas, the birthplace of Willie Foster, one of the greatest left-handed pitchers in Negro League history. Born in 1904, Foster's career spanned from 1923 to 1937, where he became known as…

  • Reconstruction on the Brazos · 13.7 mi · Things to Do

    During Reconstruction Calvert became a flashpoint for racial politics in Texas. African Americans supported by White Republican allies briefly exercised real…

  • When Calvert Was Fourth in Texas · 13.7 mi · Things to Do

    It is hard to believe today but Calvert was once the fourth-largest city in Texas with 10000 residents. Cotton money railroad connections and a strategic…

  • The Pride of Calvert Colored High · 13.7 mi

    In a town defined by segregation for much of its history, the Calvert Colored High School was more than just a school; it was the heart of the African American community. From its early days, it provided education and…

  • Calvert · 13.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Calvert, a town that exploded with life in the mid-1800s. Imagine ox-carts and cotton wagons jamming the streets, saloons and casinos buzzing with activity. It started as Sterling in the 1820s, a hub…

  • Steamboat Washington · 13.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the spot where the Steamboat Washington made history on the Little River. It was the winter of 1850-1851 when Captain Basil M. Hatfield steered this vessel right here, bringing a shipment of goods…

  • Calvert, Robert · 13.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Robertson County, and right here is a town named for a man who helped build Texas: Robert Calvert. He arrived in Texas in 1850, a successful planter who quickly made a fortune in the Brazos River…

  • Cotton, Giles · 13.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Robertson County, not far from Calvert, where a remarkable Texan named Giles Cotton made his mark. <break time="400ms"/> Born into slavery in South Carolina around 1814, Cotton arrived in this…

  • Maltby, William Jeff · 13.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Burnet County, the heart of Texas Ranger Captain Jeff Maltby's territory. Born in Illinois, Maltby came to Texas in 1849, serving the army as a teamster and scout, helping build forts like Belknap…

  • Rayner, John Baptis · 13.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Robertson County, near Calvert, where a remarkable voice for the people once lived. John Baptis Rayner, born into slavery in North Carolina in 1850, became a powerful orator and a leading Black…

  • Salter Rifles, Texas Volunteer Guard · 13.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Robertson County, near Calvert, where in 1880, a unique African American militia company, the Salter Rifles, was formed. These citizen-soldiers weren't just for show. On April 16th, 1880, a…

  • Calvert, TX · 13.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Robertson County, and right here is Calvert, a town born from a railroad's arrival. In January of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1868</say-as>, investors platted this community, and by…

  • The Jewish Merchants of Calvert · 13.7 mi · Things to Do

    When the railroad reached Calvert in 1868 Jewish merchants were among the first to set up shop. The Sanger Brothers opened a store that very year and more…

  • The Laughing Ghost · 13.7 mi · Things to Do

    Calverts historic district has more than Victorian architecture to offer. One downtown store is said to be haunted by the ghost of a woman who can be heard…

  • Asberry, Alexander · 13.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Alexander Asberry, a black Republican party member who served in the Twenty-first Legislature of 1889, was born on November 2, 1861, in Wilderville, Texas, the son of William and Julia Asberry. He attended Hearne…

  • Chinese Farmers · 13.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Calvert, and right here, history tells us about the Chinese farmers who arrived around 1874. <break time="400ms"/> These workers, imported to help with the cotton fields, wore distinctive queues…

  • Citizens Bank & Trust Co. Building · 13.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Calvert, and right here is a building that's been a cornerstone of this town's commerce for over a century. Built back in 1868, it started as a general store. Just a couple years later, it was…

  • Field, Scott · 13.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Robertson County, near Calvert, where Scott Field made his mark. Field, a Civil War veteran and lawyer, served in the Texas Senate from 1887 to 1891. It was during his time in office that he…

  • The Yellow Fever Train · 13.8 mi · Things to Do

    On September 3 1873 a young man named W.F. Hughes stepped off a train from Shreveport and checked into a Calvert hotel. Two days later he fell ill. Within a…

  • Casting Iron From Ore Hauled a Hundred Miles by Wagon · 13.8 mi

    The handsome old brick building at 502 Main Street, now full of antiques, was once one of Calvert's first heavy industries: the Old Calvert Foundry and Manufacturing Company, established about 1870. A foundry is where…

  • The Cemetery Named for an Empresario, Tended by the Founder · 13.8 mi

    Drive the back roads around Calvert and you keep meeting the same handful of surnames carved into stone, and Sterling Cemetery ties several of them together. The land traces to an 1835 grant to A. J. Webb, but the place…

  • Adoue, Jacques, Building · 13.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Calvert, and right here is a building that's a relic of Jacques Adoue, a French immigrant who arrived in Texas in the 1860s. He and his brothers became major business leaders in Calvert, Dallas,…

  • Cobb's Market · 13.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Cobb's Market, a place that's seen some serious history! It started out as a simple meat market back in 1868. But then, in 1878, a woman named Mrs. Ella Oscar decided to transform it. She turned it…

  • Randolph-Field Place · 13.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising through Calvert, and right here is one of the city's oldest homes, built around 1871. It's a beautiful example of Greek Revival style, originally home to George F. Randolph, a local merchant. Randolph…

  • The 1870 Cemetery · 13.8 mi · Things to Do

    Calverts historic cemetery dates to 1870 just two years after the railroad arrived. The headstones read like a census of the frontier with names from every…

  • Calvert Foundry and Manufacturing Company · 13.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Calvert Foundry and Manufacturing Company, established around 1870. This was one of the very first industries in Calvert! Look at the brickwork – all made right here in the county.…

  • Former Calvert Courthouse · 13.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the former Calvert Courthouse, a building that saw its share of drama. Calvert fought hard to become the county seat in 1870, but then disaster struck. In 1873, a yellow fever epidemic wiped out many…

  • Casimir Drugstore · 13.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Calvert, and right here is the Casimir Drugstore. Sometime after 1869, Jean Pierre Casimir, who came all the way from Toulouse, France, built this very building. His family kept this drugstore…

  • St. Paul United Methodist Church · 13.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the historic St. Paul United Methodist Church in Calvert. This congregation got its start way back in 1872, originally as the St. Paul Methodist Episcopal Church, North. After their first building…

  • Sterling Cemetery · 13.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Sterling Cemetery, a burial place for some 400 pioneers and their descendants. The land was originally granted in 1835, but in 1850, Judge Robert Calvert bought it, dedicated this 11-acre plot, and…

  • The Largest Cotton Gin in the World · 13.9 mi · Things to Do

    In 1871 tiny Calvert Texas claimed to have the largest cotton gin on the entire planet. The town had exploded after the Houston and Texas Central Railway…

  • A Victorian Museum That Nobody Planned · 13.9 mi · Things to Do

    Calvert is now the fourth largest historic district in Texas and nobody planned it that way. When the cotton money dried up and the population drained away the…

  • When Calvert Bragged It Had the Biggest Cotton Gin on Earth · 13.9 mi

    For a few electric years after the railroad arrived, this quiet Main Street was one of the busiest cotton markets in Texas. The Houston and Texas Central made Calvert the shipping point for the deep, fertile Brazos…

  • The Printer Who Brought the Fever · 13.9 mi

    Calvert was riding high in 1873, a brash young railroad-and-cotton town with money and ambition, when one traveler unraveled it. According to an early local judge's account, a traveling printer arrived from Louisiana,…

  • Texas First Chapter House · 13.9 mi · Things to Do

    In 1909 Calvert established the first chapter house of the American Womans League in all of Texas and one of the first four in the entire country. The Prairie…

  • Church of the Epiphany · 13.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Calvert, and right here is the Church of the Epiphany. Organized way back on June 6th, 1870, by Bishop Gregg, this is the oldest church building still standing in Calvert. It's been in continuous…

  • Mistrot-Adoue House · 13.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Mistrot-Adoue House in Calvert, a home built in the 1870s. Notice the blend of Greek Revival and Victorian styles, but look closer at the woodwork. That's French influence, with fleur-de-lis…

  • Katy Hamman Stricker Library · 13.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Katy Hamman Stricker Library in Calvert, a building with a fascinating past tied to women's clubs and a national movement. Back in 1907, businessman Edward G. Lewis founded the American Woman's…

  • Sneed Memorial Methodist Church · 13.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Calvert's historic Methodist Church, a place with roots stretching back to 1869. This congregation built its first sanctuary right here in 1872. Think about the pastors who walked these…

  • Stricker-Sneed House · 14.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising past a beautiful Victorian home, built in 1900 by Herman and Katy Stricker. Herman was a jeweler, and Katy came from a prominent family, the daughter of a Confederate General. She was a real mover and…

  • Howard, S.M. · 14.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the S.M. Howard house in Calvert, a beautiful Eastlake style cottage built in 1897. Look for its fishscale shingles and a wide veranda dripping with intricate gingerbread trim. Mrs. Howard, who lived…

  • Parish Carriage House · 14.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Parish Carriage House in Calvert, a relic from a time when horses pulled the finest carriages. In 1892, wealthy merchant L. H. Parish and his wife Mattie bought this land. They soon built this…

  • First Presbyterian Church · 14.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past First Presbyterian Church. Built at Sterling before Civil War, on land of Judge Robert Calvert, Texas legislator and descendant of Lord Baltimore (Maryland colonizer). Leaded glass in windows was…

  • Virginia Field Park · 14.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Virginia Field Park in Calvert, a place with a surprising history. Back in 1865, soldiers from Hood's Texas Brigade mustered right here. But the most unusual part? During Reconstruction, this spot…

  • Barton Home · 14.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Barton Home in Calvert. After a fire destroyed her previous house, Minnie Walker Burnitt Barton, widow of a plantation owner, built this home in 1909. She wanted it to stand up to natural…

  • Calvert Jewish Cemetery · 14.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Calvert, a town that owes much of its early success to its Jewish community. By 1870, Jewish merchants like Rudolph Oscar, who opened a dry goods store and the Grand Central Hotel, owned about…

  • Little River Baptist Church and Cemetery · 14.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Little River Baptist Church, a community hub that started way back in 1849 with just eight members. They met in homes at first, then built a log cabin. Imagine this place buzzing in…

  • The Woman on the Pancake Box Is Buried Out Here · 14.6 mi

    Out here in the Black Jack community, a few miles northeast of Hearne, there is a country cemetery called Hammond Colony. One of the headstones belongs to a woman whose face sold breakfast to the entire United States.…

  • Robert Henry · 14.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a man who lived a truly remarkable life. Robert Henry, born in Ireland in 1801, arrived in Texas in 1832, joining Robertson's Colony. He fought bravely in the Texas Revolution, serving in…

  • Broaddus, Andrew S., Judge · 14.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're passing through Cooks Point, the home of Judge Andrew S. Broaddus, a true pioneer leader. Back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1854</say-as>, he piloted a mile-long wagon train carrying 200 people all…

  • Cooks Point · 14.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Cooks Point, a community founded around 1840. Imagine this spot as a crucial crossroads, where the colonial road from the southeast met the San Antonio Road. The first settler here, Gabriel…

  • Fort Tenoxtitlan · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Fort Tenoxtitlan, a frontier outpost with a name as old as Mexico itself. Founded by Mexico in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1830</say-as>, its mission was to stop the flood of…

  • Duewall House · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Duewall House, a home built with history right into its walls. Rudolph and Anna Duewall settled this land in the 1880s, starting a family farm. Their son Edward and his wife Lizzie kept the farm…

  • Elizabeth Chapel Methodist Church · 15.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the very first Methodist Church in Burleson County. It all started around 1839, not in a building, but as a Sunday School held in the home of Isaac Addison. Later, it moved to the home of…

  • Cooks Point United Methodist Church · 15.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Cooks Point, Texas, a community with roots stretching back to 1881. This United Methodist Church began as a beacon for German-speaking immigrants, organized by Anna Duewall, who arrived here just…

  • Moseley's Ferry · 15.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past where the Old San Antonio Road once crossed the Brazos River. Back in 1846, Michael Boren started a public ferry right here. Four years later, Daniel Moseley took over, and his family kept the ferry…

  • R. F. and Minta Pool House · 15.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the R.F. and Minta Pool House in Cameron. This Queen Anne beauty was built in 1902 by developer Jefferson Hefley, but the Pools bought it the same year. R.F. Pool arrived in Cameron in 1881 and…

  • Mt. Homer Baptist Church Cemetery · 15.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Mt. Homer Baptist Church Cemetery, a place with a deep history. Originally the Watson Cemetery, it transferred to the Mt. Homer Baptist Church in 1866. The earliest marked grave here belongs to…

  • Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria Mission · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Milam County, not far from Rockdale, where back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1749</say-as>, a Spanish mission called Nuestra Señora de la Candelaria was founded. It was meant to serve…

  • Washington, Lewis Miles Hobbs · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Milam County, maybe near Nashville, where Lewis Washington's family once lived. But Washington himself was a man of action and words, fighting in the Texas Revolution at the Siege of Bexar. He was…

  • Boales, Calvin · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once the wild frontier of Texas, near the Brazos River, not far from the Nashville settlement. Right here, in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1835</say-as>, Calvin Boales and his…

  • Cayce, Henry Petty · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Milam County, and right here near Davilla is where Henry Petty Cayce, a man who fought in FIVE wars over THIRTY years, met his end. Born in Tennessee, he came to Texas as a boy and was fighting…

  • Fifth Texas Infantry · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Texas, but the story of the Fifth Texas Infantry actually begins hundreds of miles away in Richmond, Virginia, back in October of 1861. These soldiers, recruited from towns across Texas like…

  • San Francisco Xavier de Gigedo Presidio · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Milam County, near Rockdale, where a Spanish military outpost once stood. San Francisco Xavier de Gigedo Presidio was founded in 1751, not just to protect missions, but to deal with a host of…

  • San Francisco Xavier de Horcasitas Mission · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Milam County, not far from Rockdale. Right here, in the mid-1700s, was the site of San Francisco Xavier de Horcasitas Mission. It was one of three Spanish missions established in the area, founded…

  • San Gabriel River · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Central Texas, and right here is the San Gabriel River. It’s a place with a history stretching back centuries. Spanish explorers first charted it in <say-as interpret-as="date"…

  • San Ildefonso Mission · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving near Rockdale, deep in Milam County, where one of the first Spanish missions in this part of Texas was established. This was San Ildefonso Mission, founded back in 1748. It was part of a chain of three…

  • San Xavier Missions · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Milam County, near Rockdale, where back in the mid-1700s, three Spanish missions tried to serve the Native Americans of Central Texas. These missions – San Francisco Xavier de Horcasitas, San…

  • Thomson, William Dowsing · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Milam County, maybe near Old Nashville, and right here is where William Dowsing Thomson helped pioneer this land. He first came to Texas with his father in the early 1830s, surveying for Sterling…

  • Port Sullivan, TX · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Port Sullivan was on a low bluff just downstream from a shoal of giant limestone boulders in the Brazos River, one mile northeast of Farm Road 485 in eastern Milam County. A stone marker erected at the site in 1936,…

  • Sandow, TX · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Sandow is a mining community on Farm Road 1786 eight miles southwest of Rockdale in southern Milam County. At one time the site was a stop for mule drivers hauling freight from Matagorda. Freezeout, as the drivers named…

  • Home Demonstration · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Texas, and right here in Milam County, back in 1912, a new kind of education began for rural girls. It was called Home Demonstration work, and it started with Edna Westbrook Trigg teaching tomato…

  • McKay, Daniel · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Milam County, and right here, in what is now this area, Daniel McKay was fighting for Texas independence. Born in Maine in 1814, he came to Texas in 1834. Just two years later, in March of 1836,…

  • Pamaya Indians · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what is now Milam County, Texas, but way back in 1716, this was home to about 2,000 Pamaya Indians. They were part of a larger group displaced from their homelands, living in a rancheria and…

  • Walker, William Henry · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Milam County, where William Henry Walker settled in the early 1830s. Life on the Texas frontier was tough, and for Walker, it meant facing down an Indian attack in 1836. He and three other…

  • San Gabriel, TX · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    San Gabriel is on Farm Road 486 seventeen miles southwest of Cameron in western Milam County. In the 1730s and 1740s several Spanish missions were established near the site in an effort to Christianize the Indian tribes…

  • Lesuer, Charles Marion · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Milam County, not far from where Charles Marion Lesuer raised a company of Confederate cavalry. He called them the 'San Andres Light Horse Company,' named after the town where he lived. Lesuer, a…

  • Mesquite Indians · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what is now Milam County, Texas, an area that was once home to the Mesquite Indians. The Spanish gave this name to several different groups across Texas, but the ones in this region were part of…

  • Pastia Indians · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through South Texas, maybe near the Nueces River, and you might be passing through the ancient territory of the Pastia Indians. These weren't a famous tribe, and their name even caused confusion for early…

  • Rancheria Grande · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the heart of Texas, perhaps near Milam County, and you're passing through a place that once held a name that meant 'great settlement' to Spanish explorers. Ranchería Grande wasn't one specific…

  • Sijame Indians · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Central Texas, perhaps near the future Milam County. Right here, in 1716, the Sijame people were encamped with both Tonkawan and Coahuiltecan bands at a place called Ranchería Grande. Their name…

  • Davilla, TX · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Davilla is on Farm Road 487 eighteen miles west of Cameron in western Milam County. It was settled in the 1860s and named for Miguel Davila, who had received the original grant for the land in 1833. A surveyor named…

  • Maysfield, TX · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Maysfield is on Farm Road 485 eight miles northeast of Cameron in northeastern Milam County. It was originally called Old Graball, but its name was later changed to Maysfield in honor of Thomas Newton Mayes, who moved…

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