Burton, Texas

Everything Burton is known for

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Burton

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

Brazos River 37 songs Texas Colorado River 6 songs Interstate 10 32 songs US Route 90 8 songs

Musical Heritage

Burton Cotton Gin Festival RoadyGoat

Every third weekend in April, the town of Burton runs its old cotton gin the way it was built to be run — full tilt, baling cotton, just like it has since 1990. The Burton Cotton Gin Festival is free to walk into, and it celebrates the crop that made this community: there's a tractor pull, craft vendors, and folklife demonstrations where you can watch cotton get spun and woven by hand. And running through all of it, live music — because you don't throw a Texas festival without a band. Cotton built the town. Once a year, the town makes it sing again.

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White Horse Tavern RoadyGoat

The White Horse Tavern in Burton has been pouring for its people since 1922 — and these days it's run by somebody who knows exactly what a room needs to feel alive. Allison Krause Crowson is a working musician and a former assistant principal, and she keeps the place doing double duty: lunch three days a week, and live music every single weekend. Some nights it's a tribute show — they've done Dolly Parton — and every night it's the kind of spot where the whole town seems to drift through the door whether they meant to or not. More than a hundred years old, and it still works the way the best small-town taverns always have: as the place everybody ends up. Turns out an assistant principal and a honky-tonk singer have the same job — keep the room together.

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History of Burton

The Lodge That Drew Two Thousand to a Town of Six Hundred RoadyGoat

1884

One of Burton's best stories almost never gets told, and the easiest way to feel its size is in a number: in 1896 a single celebration here drew around two thousand people, several times the entire population of the town. The reason was the Matson Lodge. Burton's Black families organized it in 1884 as a local branch of a fraternal order called the United Brothers of Friendship. In a time when banks and insurance companies shut Black families out, the lodge did the work nobody else would: it paid out life insurance and death benefits, helped families through hard times, and bound the community together. By its thirty-fifth anniversary, on a August day in 1896, the lodge threw what the papers called a grand jubilee. People poured in from this county and the ones next door, a band led by a man named Gus Hopkins marched right through town, and the crowd swelled to about two thousand. The two-story lodge hall built in 1919 still stands, and the order's work later carried on under the name the Long Life Brotherhood Club. (Source: Burton Heritage Society.)

The Pink Granite That Fell Off the Train RoadyGoat

1902

If you spot a big block of pink granite sitting in downtown Burton, near where the old Burton State Bank stands at Main and Washington, know that it was never supposed to stop here at all. In the early nineteen hundreds, after the great storm that nearly wiped Galveston off the map, Texas set out to armor the island against the Gulf. Trainloads of pink granite came rolling down out of the Hill Country, from Granite Mountain up near Marble Falls, the very same dome of stone that built the Texas Capitol. The granite was bound for the giant coastal-defense works at Galveston, where it was used as massive riprap and jetty stone to help hold the sea back. The seawall itself was poured concrete, but it leaned on tons of this granite to protect it. As the loaded flatcars of the Houston and Texas Central rumbled through Burton, a few of those rough blocks shook loose and tumbled off beside the tracks. Some of them never made it to the coast. One was hauled to its display spot in town in 1987, a stray piece of the Gulf Coast's armor that got off the train a couple hundred miles too early. (Source: Burton historical marker; Texas State Historical Association.)

Burton's Daughter Who Broke Into the University's Boardroom RoadyGoat

1869

A girl born right here in Burton in 1869 grew up to break into one of the most powerful rooms in Texas. Her name was Mary McClellan O'Hair. She became a leader in the women's club movement and a supporter of the fight for women's right to vote, and in 1921 the governor appointed her to the Board of Regents of the University of Texas, the first woman ever to serve on it. She was no figurehead. She pushed the university to stop patching along with temporary wooden buildings and start raising the permanent stone halls a real university needed, and she was the first regent ever reappointed, serving until 1929. When she died in 1936, the state paid her a rare honor: the flags over the Texas Capitol in Austin were lowered to half-staff for a woman from a little cotton town between Brenham and Carmine. (Source: Texas State Historical Association.)

Gaines, Matthew

1863

Matthew Gaines, Black senator and Baptist preacher, was born on August 4, 1840, to a slave mother on the plantation of Bernardo Martin Despallier in Pineville, near Alexandria, Rapides Parish, Louisiana. Her owner was widow Candida Grande Despallier, mother of Alamo hero Charles Despallier . Gaines biographies mention that in the old Despallier house, English, French, and Spanish were spoken, which is very probable because Bernardo Martin Despallier was of French descent, and he had worked for the Spanish in both Louisiana and Texas. Grande was of Spanish descent. Matthew Gaines learned to read by candlelight from books smuggled to him by a White boy who lived on the same plantation. Gaines, however, never told who the boy was, but it may have been young Blaz Philipe II Despallier. The boys were about the same age, and Blaz did attend school. Gaines escaped to freedom twice but each time was caught and returned to slavery . His first escape came after 1850, when he was sold to a man from Louisiana and was subsequently hired out as a laborer on a steamboat. Using a false pass, he escaped to Camden, Arkansas. He left Arkansas six months afterwards and made his way to New Orleans, where he was caught and brought back to his master. Later, Gaines was sold to a Texas planter from Robertson County, and in 1863 he made another escape attempt. His destination was Mexico, but he made it only as far as Fort McKavett in Menard County before being caught by the Texas Rangers . He was taken back to Fredericksburg and remained in that area until the end of the Civil War . During his tenure as a slave in Fredericksburg, Gaines worked as a blacksmith and a sheepherder. After Emancipation Gaines settled in Burton, Washington County, where he soon established himself as a leader of the Black community, both as a minister and a politician. During Reconstruction he was elected as a senator to represent the Sixteenth District in the Texas legislature. Gaines was a vigilant guardian of the rights and interests of African Americans . Among the many issues he addressed were education, prison reform, the protection of Blacks at the polls, the election of Blacks to public office, and tenant-farming reform. To encourage educational and religious groups to work toward educational improvement in their communities, Gaines sponsored a bill that called for exempting such organizations from taxation. Buildings and equipment used for charitable or literary associations were also exempted; the bill became law on June 12, 1871. Gaines was also responsible for the passage of a bill authorizing his district to levy a special tax for construction of a new jail. His concern for prison reform stemmed from his concern for the protection of Blacks from mob violence. In keeping with this belief, Gaines waged an unrelenting war in the Senate for the passage of the Militia Bill. It was Gaines's feeling that if Blacks were protected (via the Militia Bill) in the exercising of the Fifteenth Amendment, they could make a difference at the polls. Hence, after the successful passage of the Militia Bill, Gaines made a concerted, but unsuccessful, effort to drum up support to elect a Black Texan to the United States House of Representatives. Gaines was very sympathetic to the plight of the Black masses. He was one of the few Blacks who served in the legislature from 1870 to 1900 to voice an opinion in opposition to the Landlord and Tenant Act of 1872. As such, he proposed a law (which failed) to give the tenant the first lien on the crop. ( see FARM TENANCY.) Gaines was elected to a six-year term to the Senate, but served only four years because his seat was challenged when he was convicted on the charge of bigamy in 1873, and he subsequently relinquished his post. The charge was overturned on appeal, and he was reelected, but the Democratic and White majority seated his opponent. Gaines continued to be active in politics and made his political views known in conventions, public

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McNelly, Leander Harvey

1874

Leander Harvey McNelly, Confederate Army officer and Texas Ranger captain, was born probably in Brooke County, Virginia (later West Virginia), on March 12, 1844. The 1850 census listed his parents as John and Catherine McNelly, who had immigrated from Ireland by 1835. Genealogy listings give the parents' names as Owen John McNelly and Mary Catherine (Killian) McNelly, who resided in Brooke County in 1850. The household consisted of eight children, and Leander was attending school. His family seems to have sojourned briefly in Missouri around 1855 before moving from Virginia to Texas in the fall of 1860. John McNelly drove a herd of sheep overland to western Washington County while the rest of his family sailed to Texas. For a period of time Leander herded sheep for a neighbor, T. J. Burton. In the Civil War during Gen. Henry H. Sibley 's New Mexico campaign, Leander McNelly served as a private in Capt. George Washington Campbell's Company F of Col. Thomas Green 's Fifth Texas Cavalry until he was detached to Sibley's escort company. In 1863, after taking part in the battle of Galveston , he served as a volunteer aide-de-camp on the staff of General Green, who was then commanding the Texas cavalry brigade of the Confederate Trans-Mississippi Department. For what Theophilous Noel characterized as "his daring gallantry," Green promoted McNelly to captain of scouts and on November 25, 1863, recommended him for a captain's commission. In Green's southern Louisiana campaign of 1864 McNelly played major roles in the battles of Brashear City and Lafourche Crossing. He was seriously wounded at the battle of Mansfield in April 1864, and command of his company devolved upon his lieutenants, William D. Stone and Thomas T. Pitts, who led the unit with distinction at Pleasant Hill, Blair's Landing, and Grande Écore ( see RED RIVER CAMPAIGN ). After recovering from his wound, McNelly returned to his command in May in time to participate in the battle of Yellow Bayou. He was then ordered into the Bayou Lafourche country of southern Louisiana to scout and harass the enemy. On July 1, 1864, after Green's death at the battle of Blair's Landing, Louisiana, McNelly was transferred to Gen. John A. Wharton 's cavalry corps and on July 6 was ordered with his company east of the Atchafalaya River "to procure and transmit to these Headquarters the latest and definite information of the enemy's movements in that section." In 1864 McNelly commanded a scout company on Bayou Grosse Tete west of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. In Noel's words, his company "betook themselves to the swamps and canebrakes where they confined their operations until the enemy commenced their retreat." Typical of McNelly's exploits was the capture of 380 men in the Union garrison at Brashear City, Louisiana, by his party of fifteen or twenty scouts. After a period of "hunting up Jayhawkers on the Calcasieu," McNelly was transferred to Gen. George G. Walker 's cavalry corps and ordered to Washington County, Texas, to arrest deserters. After the war he turned to farming near Brenham in Washington County and on October 17, 1865, married Carey Cheek. They had two children. He later worked for a time in the General Land Office . During the Edmund J. Davis administration, McNelly served as one of the four captains of the State Police from July 1, 1870, until the force was disbanded on April 22, 1873. In February 1871, after arresting four White men for the murder of a freedman in Walker County, McNelly was wounded by friends of the accused. In 1874 he was commissioned to lead a new company-a "Special Force" known as the Washington County Volunteers. Muster rolls recorded an enlistment date of July 14, 1874. A quasi-military branch of the Texas Rangers , the Special Force formed for service in South Texas, including the area between the Nueces River and the Rio Grande known as the Nueces Strip. Duties included the attempt to break up the Sutton-Taylor feud in DeWitt County. McNelly and his men

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Burton, TX

1862

Burton, on U.S. Highway 290 in western Washington County, was originally established in 1862 and named for John M. Burton, an early settler in the area. The Burton post office opened in 1870, with A. C. Huberich as first postmaster. In the fall of 1872 the community incorporated, and Nelson Felder served as the first mayor. The town's economy benefited from the extension of the Houston and Texas Central Railway from Brenham to Austin after the Civil War . During the 1880s Burton had three churches, a bank, a school, and a hotel, and by 1885 it had a population of 150. Its population was reported as 400 in 1896 and nearly 600 in 1910. Burton had a population of 800 and thirty businesses by the mid-1940s. During the 1970s, however, the town declined, and its residents had dwindled to 296 by 1980. The population was an estimated 368 in 1987, and 311 in 1990, when Burton had a post office, an independent school district, a bank, and a number of small businesses. In 2000 the population was 359. Leander H. McNelly , one of the most famous Texas Rangers , was buried near Burton in 1877. In the early 1980s economist Douglas Hutchinson of Burton, Ohio, acquired a Victorian house in Burton and renovated an old cotton gin there as a center for information on cotton ginning.

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St. John's United Church of Christ Cemetery

1899

IN JUNE 1894, A CHRISTIAN CONGREGATION CALLED EVANGELICAL ST. JOHN’S CHURCH OF BURTON ORGANIZED. IN OCTOBER 1899, A LONG-FELT NEED FOR A CEMETERY FOR THE CHURCH WAS MET WHEN TWO ACRES OF LAND, A MILE EAST OF BURTON, WERE PURCHASED FROM MR. AND MRS. MICHAEL WOLFF FOR $57. THE FIRST RECORDED BURIAL IS OF MARTIN ROGAS (MARCH 30, 1900). THE FIRST MARKED GRAVE BELONGS TO HULDA ARNDT, BURIED SEPTEMBER 12, 1899. EXPECTING THE NEED FOR MORE CEMETERY LAND, THE CHURCH PURCHASED AN ADDITIONAL 1.448 ACRES ADJACENT TO THE ORIGINAL CEMETERY FROM F. R. AND ANNIE MAUD AVIS ON JANUARY 25, 1976. THE CEMETERY HAS CERTAIN DISTINCT AREAS WORTH MENTIONING. THERE IS A SEPARATE CHILDREN’S SECTION WHICH WAS ESTABLISHED EARLY ON, AND ACCORDING TO THE RECORDS, SOME 53 CHILDREN WERE BURIED THERE FROM 1899 TO 1909. IN THE CENTER OF THE CEMETERY THERE IS A FINAL RESTING PLACE FOR MINISTERS THAT INCLUDES THE GRAVE OF REV. HERMANN SCHULZ (d. JANUARY 13, 1941), WHO WAS THE MINISTER OF ST. JOHN’S FROM 1898 TO 1921. IN ANOTHER SECTION ARE SEVEN GRAVES, ALL IN A ROW AND MARKED BY IDENTICAL MONUMENTS. THESE BELONG TO FIVE CONFIRMANDS AND TWO YOUNG MEN FROM THE CHURCH WHO DIED IN ACTION OR OF DISEASE IN FRANCE DURING WORLD WAR I. OTHER VETERAN BURIALS BELONG NOT ONLY TO THOSE WHO SERVED IN THE WORLD WARS BUT ALSO THE KOREAN AND VIETNAM WARS. SINCE ITS CREATION, THIS CEMETERY ON A HILL HAS BEEN THE LAST RESTING PLACE OF THOSE WHO IN LIFE WERE PART OF THE CHURCH.

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McNelly, Leander H.

1870

Born in Virginia; was valiant Confederate soldier. In 1870, appointed one of four State Police captains by Gov. E. J. Davis. Then with Texas Rangers, McNelly was assigned a special force, "The Washington County Volunteer MiIitia," to mediate the Sutton-Taylor feud. Company then assigned to Rio Grande border to control international cattle thieves in "Las Cuevas War." His men always proudly called themselves, "Little McNellys."

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Burton Community

1820

John M. Burton (1806-77) of Georgia came to Texas in the 1820s, and to this area in 1834. When the Houston & Texas Central Railroad was being built in 1869, he sold land for townsite. Post office opened Sept. 23, 1870, with Charles Huberich as postmaster. Early businesses included a mercantile store, lumber yard, blacksmith, tin shop, cotton gin, oil mill, drugstore, and leather shop. The noted Texas Ranger Captain L. H. McNelly lived here. After service with State Police, he came home and raised two Ranger units that reflected credit on citizens of the Burton community, 1874-1877.

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Things to Do in Burton

quirky 11.9 mi away
From Cotton Gin to Ice Cream Empire

In 1907 a group of Washington County dairy farmers converted an abandoned cotton gin into a creamery and started making butter. Ice cream production began in…
historical 11.9 mi away
The Night Federal Troops Burned Brenham

In 1866 Union soldiers occupying Brenham during Reconstruction clashed with local residents and set fire to an entire city block. The flames consumed…
quirky 11.9 mi away
The Underground City Beneath the Streets

After fires ravaged Brenham three times in a decade the town did something no other Texas city had attempted. They built twenty-seven underground cisterns…
music 9.3 mi away
Festival Institute

Festival Hill: a 210-acre classical-music campus on Jaster Road hosting summer concerts, recitals, and a renowned festival in its grand concert hall.
food 10.0 mi away
Royers Round Top Cafe

Bud Royer's pie-mecca on the Round Top square — buttermilk, pecan, and a daily rotation of about ten flavors. Statewide-famous and the anchor of the…
quirky 11.8 mi away
The Oldest Festival in Texas

When German immigrants fleeing the 1848 revolutions settled in Brenham they brought their traditions with them. The Maifest celebration they started became the…
historical 11.8 mi away
The First Tax-Funded Schools

In 1875 Brenham became the first city in Texas to operate a tax-supported public school system. They didn't stop there. The system included a school for Black…
historical 11.8 mi away
The Fire Department That Was Really an Army

The Brenham Volunteer Fire Department was organized after the 1866 burning but its true purpose had nothing to do with flames. The department was a civilian…

Sports in Burton

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 2A Division II · Baseball · 2026

Burton Panthers — 2026 UIL Class 2A Division II State Champions

def. Ropes 6–1 · Dell Diamond, Round Rock · June 4, 2026

Washington County had waited 39 years. The Burton Panthers ended the drought in style, topping Ropes 6–1 at Dell Diamond for the 2026 Class 2A Division II crown — the school's first baseball state championship since 1987.

Ace Tyler Witt did it on both ends. He went the distance on the mound — a complete game, one run on four hits with five strikeouts — and set the tone in the box, leading off the bottom of the first with a triple to right-center and scoring on Ruben Rodriguez's sacrifice fly. After Ropes tied it in the fourth, Ryder Biggs singled and came around on Isaac Matthies' RBI knock to put Burton back ahead, and the Panthers slammed the door with a four-run fifth.

Final
Burton 6, Ropes 1
Title
1st since 1987
MVP
Tyler Witt
MVP line
CG, 1 R, 4 H, 5 K
Key Players
  • Tyler Witt — MVP — complete-game one-run win AND a leadoff triple
  • Ruben Rodriguez — Sacrifice fly for the game's first run
  • Isaac Matthies — RBI single to retake the lead in the fourth
  • Ryder Biggs — Singled and scored the go-ahead run
The moment

Witt led off the bottom of the first with a triple and scored the opening run — then never gave the lead back, finishing his own complete game.

Sources: KXXV · South Texas News

Everything Near Burton

502 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

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