Caldwell, Texas

Everything Caldwell is known for

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Cody Joe Hodges
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Steve Anthony
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Dorian Sean
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Shawn Jennings
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Rivers & Roads in Song near Caldwell

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

Brazos River 42 songs Texas Colorado River 6 songs Texas State Highway 71 2 songs Kickapoo Creek 4 songs

Musical Heritage

Goodbye, Old Paint RoadyGoat

Caldwell is named for Mathew Caldwell, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence who was nicknamed Old Paint because his whiskers were spotted. The famous cowboy song Goodbye, Old Paint isn't about him, but it has a Texas story of its own. Charley Willis was born enslaved in Milam County around eighteen forty seven, and after emancipation he broke horses and rode on a trail drive north to Wyoming. His great-grandson told NPR that his voice was real soothing to the cattle, which is why trail bosses wanted him along. He came home singing Goodbye, Old Paint, and he taught it to a rancher's young son, Jess Morris. Morris grew up to be a fiddler, and he always said he'd learned the song from Charley Willis. The folklorist John Lomax recorded Morris singing it for the Library of Congress, and credited the song to Black cowboys, though, as NPR noted, he never recorded a Black man playing it.

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History of Caldwell

The Buff-Brick Courthouse With a Skylight in Its Heart RoadyGoat

The buff-colored landmark anchoring the square at 100 West Buck Street is Burleson County's fifth courthouse, and the one that finally lasted. Earlier versions went up in 1846 and 1850, and a two-story brick building served from around 1890, but in 1926 the county commissioned Houston architect J.M. Glover to design something grander. Built 1926 to 1927 by the T.B. Hubbard Construction Company for about 200,000 dollars, the three-story Classical Revival building is faced in buff brick over concrete. Step inside and the surprise is overhead: a central atrium rises the full height of the third floor to a skylight, so daylight pours straight down into the heart of the building, and the plasterwork carries the flowing, foliage-style Sullivanesque detail named for architect Louis Sullivan. The county seal is set into the lobby floor and the district courtroom occupies the northeast corner of the top story. Nearly a century on, it still does the job it was built for, the working center of county government in the Kolache Capital. (Source: courthouses.co; Handbook of Texas.)

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Named for Old Paint, the Paul Revere of the Texas Revolution RoadyGoat

The town you're rolling through carries the name of a man who never lived here. Caldwell was laid out by surveyor George B. Erath on a site first settled by Lewis L. Chiles, west of Davidson Creek and parallel to the Old San Antonio Road, the wagon route that once linked the Texas missions. It was named for Mathew Caldwell, born in Kentucky in 1798, who came to Texas with the Green DeWitt colony in 1831. Nicknamed Old Paint for the white patches in his prematurely gray hair and beard, he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence at Washington-on-the-Brazos in 1836 and earned the title Paul Revere of the Texas Revolution for riding the alarm before the Battle of Gonzales. He later led the force that beat back General Adrian Woll at the Battle of Salado Creek in 1842, then died that same year of wounds and hardship. Caldwell County near Lockhart also bears his name, but this Burleson County seat got it first, fixed to the map by 1840. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Mathew Caldwell biography.)

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How a Moravian Pastry Made Caldwell the Kolache Capital RoadyGoat

In the 1880s, large numbers of Czech immigrants poured into Burleson County and settled the land around Caldwell, founding all-Czech communities like Frenstat, New Tabor, and Sebesta, the last later renamed Snook. Unlike most Czech colonies in America, these families came from Moravia rather than Bohemia and stayed deeply religious, mostly Catholic with a strong Moravian Brethren minority. What they carried with them in their kitchens turned out to matter as much as what they raised in their fields: the kolache, a soft, slightly sweet yeast pastry pressed with a thumb-deep well and filled with poppy seed, prune, apricot, or farmer's cheese. A century later, their descendants worried the language and customs were fading, so they launched the Caldwell Kolache Festival, held the second Saturday of September and now drawing roughly 15,000 people for a single day. In 1989 the state made it official, designating Caldwell the Kolache Capital of Texas, a title the town still defends with flour on its hands. (Source: Handbook of Texas; KBTX; Texas Time Travel.)

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Burleson County in World War II

1941

During World War II, out of a population of 18,000, close to 1300 men and women of Burleson County joined the military, with 450 who attended Caldwell High School drafted or voluntarily enlisted. Many had never been outside the county before their service, but they deployed around the world in defense of freedom. Area residents sacrificed for the war effort abroad and at home from the onset of American combat. At Pearl Harbor, Seaman 2/C Thomas J. Gary of Somerville died aboard the U.S.S. California while giving his life to save his crewmates from burning. The Navy posthumously awarded Gary the Navy Cross and named two ships in his honor. Local National Guard Unit Company E, 143rd Infantry, 36th Division, sustained heavy losses at Salerno, Italy, with dozens of men killed, wounded, or captured. Other prisoners of war included 1st Lt. Hubert Womble, shot down over Romania during the Ploesti Oil Field raids, and USMC Major Paul Brown, who survived the Bataan Death March in the Philippines but died in a Japanese prison camp. The county’s citizen soldiers stormed Normandy Beaches on D-Day and fought in European and Pacific Theaters. Many women joined the Army and Navy Nurse Corps, and scores more worked in defense plants. Recycling drives around the county maximized the homefront war support effort. Some families received citations as “Agriculture Victory Leaders” for continuing farming operations during the war, even while short-handed at least five county families had five children at once serving in the military. Dozens of Burleson County men were killed during World War II, on battlefields overseas and in training accidents on American soil. Through countless heroic and unselfish acts, citizens demonstrated commitment to restoring liberty to the world. (2008)

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Erath, George Bernard

1833

George Bernard Erath, soldier, surveyor, and legislator, was born on January 1, 1813, in Vienna, Austria, and attended Vienna Polytechnic Institute, where he studied English and Spanish. He sailed for America after graduation and landed in New Orleans on July 8, 1832, then moved upriver to Cincinnati, where he established his home. On March 22, 1833, he moved to the Republic of Texas , where he became a surveyor in Tenoxtitlán, in Robertson's colony . In 1835 he joined John H. Moore 's ranger company to deal with marauding Indians, and on March 1, 1836, he enlisted as a private in Capt. Jesse Billingsley 's Company C of Col. Edward Burleson 's First Regiment, Texan Volunteers, for service in the Texas Revolution . After fighting in the battle of San Jacinto he joined Capt. William H. Hill's ranger company and continued surveying. He platted the town of Caldwell in 1840. By 1841 he had become the captain of the Milam County minute company. In 1842 he participated in the botched Somervell and Mier expeditions but was on guard duty on the Rio Grande during the battle of Mier and thus escaped capture. As a member of the House of Representatives of the Eighth and Ninth congresses of the republic, 1843–1845, Erath represented Milam County and was energetic and effective in his support of the annexation of Texas to the United States. After statehood, he was elected to the First Legislature. In 1846 he returned to surveying and laid out the towns of Waco and Stephenville. He was elected to the Senate of the Seventh Legislature in 1857 and subsequently reelected to the Eighth and Ninth. On January 20, 1858, Governor Hardin R. Runnels was authorized to recruit a force of 100 Texas Rangers under Capt. John S. Ford for the protection of the frontier. According to the Austin State Gazette , "To the untiring exertions of Senator Erath, whose sympathies were warmly interested in the measure, are they more indebted than to any one else for the passage of this much needed act." In 1861 Erath resigned from the Senate in order to serve on a committee of two chosen to arbitrate disagreements between the state and its reservation Indians. At the outbreak of the Civil War Erath raised a company for Col. Joseph W. Speight 's Fifteenth Texas Infantry regiment, but was discharged due to ill health and returned to his home at Waco. In 1864, however, Governor Pendleton Murrah appointed him to the command of a regiment in the Second Frontier District with the rank of major. This regiment, recruited in Brown and Coryell counties, was responsible for the defense of its home region. Erath returned to the Senate for the final time in 1874, to represent the Nineteenth District in the Fourteenth Legislature. He married Lucinda Chambers of New York in December 1845. He died on May 13, 1891, and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery, Waco. Erath County is named in his honor. Erath dictated his memoirs to his daughter Lucy in 1886; they were first published in 1923 in the Southwestern Historical Quarterly and later that year in an edition of about 100 copies by the Texas State Historical Association ; they were reprinted in Waco in 1956. They provide one of the most important sources on the Texas Revolution and on pioneer days in the 1830s and 1840s. Although Erath was "seventy-three years of age, in very poor health and blind" at the time he dictated his memoirs, his daughter maintained that his mental vigor "was the same as it had always been."

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Fort Tenoxtitlan

1830

Founded by Mexico as a bulwark against Anglo-American immigration, this fort and its nearby city were twice proposed for the capital of Texas. Alarmed by the influx of Anglo settlers into Texas, Mexico in 1830 sought to erect a line of forts to keep out the intruders. The ancient Aztec name for Mexico City (originally pronounced "Tex-ox-teet-lan") was given this site; it means "prickly pear place". So hopeful of the fort's success was the military commandant of the region that he envisioned it as the capital of Texas. But Anglo immigration did not cease. Instead it thrived on the friendship of the local soldiers and incoming pioneers. The colonizer Sterling C. Robertson introduced scores of settlers. In 1832 the soldiers were withdrawn and the fort finally defaulted to the Anglos. Subsequently it was a supply center and mustering point for expeditions against the Indians. During its brief life many Texas patriots lived here, including 5 signers of the Texas Declaration of Independence, a martyr of the Alamo siege, and 7 soldiers of the Battle of San Jacinto. Tenoxtitlan was again suggested for the capital of Texas during the Republic, but Austin won out. In 1841, after many Indian raids, the site was abandoned.

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Swisher, James Gibson

1834

James Gibson Swisher, early Texas patriot, son of Henry and Annie (Gibson) Swisher, was born near Franklin, Williamson County, Tennessee, on November 6, 1794. His father, a German immigrant, participated in the organization of Tennessee Territory as a state. After receiving a good education in Tennessee, Swisher worked as a land surveyor and gained experience dealing with Indians in his native state. In the War of 1812 he served as a private in Capt. David Mason's company of Tennessee militia from August 18, 1813, to May 21, 1814, and in Capt. John Donelson's company of United States Mounted Rangers from September 2, 1814, to September 1, 1815. Swisher participated in the two battles of New Orleans. After hostilities ceased, he married Elizabeth Boyd in Knoxville, Tennessee, on September 14, 1815. In 1833 he arrived in Texas with his brother Harvey H. Swisher, who later participated in the battle of San Jacinto . Between January and October 1834 Swisher and his family settled at Tenoxtitlán in Robertson's colony , in what is now Burleson County. He successfully led a retaliatory attack after a Comanche Indian raid on the settlement in April 1834. By October 1834 Swisher and his family had moved to Chriesman Settlement ( see GAY HILL, TEXAS) in what became Washington County. On July 2, 1835, Swisher was one of the petitioners who requested a separate municipality for the area that later became Washington Municipality. Swisher was elected captain of a military company organized in Washington Municipality at the beginning of the Texas Revolution . His Texas military service began on October 8, 1835. His company participated in the siege of Bexar in December 1835. Gen. Edward Burleson appointed Swisher one of the three commissioners to negotiate the surrender of Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cos on December 11, 1835. Swisher remained with the revolutionary army until he was elected one of four delegates from Washington Municipality to the Convention of 1836 on February 1, 1836. At the convention he participated in debates and urged payment of land bounties to reward military service as well as careful examination of all bounty claims. His proposals influenced future Texas land policy. Swisher also served on the defense committee; he opposed Sam Houston 's policy of retreat and urged immediate engagement of the enemy. Swisher signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the Republic of Texas . After the convention he accompanied his family in the Runaway Scrape and assisted in the evacuation of Washington-on-the-Brazos. Swisher later served in Capt. William W. Hill 's company of rangers on the frontier from July to October 1836. Between 1839 and 1841 he served as a justice of the peace in Washington County. He was also an incorporator and trustee of Union Academy, a Washington County school chartered in February 1840. In 1846 Swisher moved to Austin, where he operated a tavern, a hotel, and after 1852 a ferry. In his later years he also farmed. In 1848 he was registrar of an Austin high school. He was a member of the building committee of the First Presbyterian Church in Austin in 1851 and one of five members of a vigilance committee formed by the Austin vigilante movement in October 1854 to enforce slave-control laws. After Swisher's death in Austin on November 14, 1862, his wife, Elizabeth, continued to operate the important ferry transportation link on the Austin-San Antonio Road. Swisher had four children who lived to adulthood, including John Milton Swisher , who held many appointive offices in the republic and state of Texas, and James Monroe Swisher, an Indian fighter and later a state legislator. Swisher County and a street in Austin were named for James Swisher.

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Twin Sisters

1835

The Twin Sisters were two iron cannons that were used by Sam Houston 's forces at the battle of San Jacinto . The original pair, manufactured in Cincinnati, have since been confused with other pairs of cannons, and various sources have described the Twin Sisters as four-pounders and six-pounders-a feature that has been the subject of debate between researchers. The artillery pieces' path through history in the decades after the Texas Revolution is nebulous and continues to fuel discussion among scholars and history buffs. By October 1835 the Texans faced an ever growing threat from Mexican forces to tighten their control over Texas. Due to the warlike atmosphere, committees of safety were assigned, and Stephen F. Austin , after returning from the long detention in Mexico, was named commander of the Texas forces. With Gen. Martín Perfecto de Cos 's army arrival in September and the subsequent battle of Gonzales occurring on October 2, news of the conflict spread throughout Texas and led to further war preparations. William Francis "Picayune" Smith, a Brazos River trader located in the Tenoxtitlan area of Burleson County, was enlisted as an agent in a "secret service" for the Texas cause. The mission was to raise funding for the forging and supply of two iron field pieces from the "Friends of Texas" supporters in Cincinnati, Ohio. Departing in mid-October from Coles Settlement in Washington County, Smith arrived in Cincinnati just prior to November 11. The Cincinnati Republican on November 11 announced his arrival and the proposal for a meeting at the courthouse on November 12. Smith made his case for the cause of Texas and appealed to the citizens of Cincinnati to aid him in "raising funds to purchase a pair of field pieces to take to Texas...." Local attorney Edward Woodruff immediately established committees by wards of the city. Key citizens and city leaders involved included William Corry, Pulaski Smith, David T. Disney, Robert T. Lytle, Nicholas Clopper, Henry Tatem, Benjamin Chase, Dr. Daniel Drake, and Israel Ludlow. Cincinnati was also the home of David Burnet 's older brothers, Mayor Isaac Burnet and Judge Jacob Burnet, who arranged use of the courthouse for the meetings that were held on November 12 and 17. Lytle on November 17 offered multiple resolutions, and all resolutions were unanimously adopted, including the following key resolution regarding the cannons: Resolved, That we approve of and recommend to the citizen[s] of this meeting a plan by which the citizens of Texas shall be supplied through their agent, Mr. Smith, by our contributions, with such an amount of HOLLOW WARE as he may deem sufficient, to contain other provisions by which they shall be filled according to his judgment and sound discretion. In a handwritten letter, the son of Thomas Stansbury, a Cincinnati merchant, confirmed that the cannons were forged and mounted by the Tatem brothers (Willis and Henry) at the Phoenix Foundry . Stansbury played a key role in negotiating shipment of the cannons after much delay. At the fifty-year anniversary of the battle of San Jacinto, the Cincinnati Commercial Gazette collected the "memories" of the cannons' origin. The committee of citizens had ordered "two four-pounders cast and delivered as soon as it was possible to furnish them" for an agreed price of $600. The committee consulted Miles Greenwood as to what kind of shot would be provided, and Greenwood, at his foundry, then cast six barrels of eight ounce iron balls (grape shot) and presented them as his donation. The guns were sent to fire engine manufacturers Benjamin Chase and Jeffrey Seymour for boring of the barrels and then returned to the Tatem brothers. Committee members David T. Disney, William Curry, and Robert T. Lytle called upon Francis Cassat (also spelled Cassatt and Cassett), a well-known blacksmith and carriage maker, to make carriages for the two guns, and the carriages, "rough but substantial," were on hand on December 30, 1835. The ca

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Burleson County

1825

In rich Brazos River basin; had settlers early as 1825. Site in 1830 of Tenoxtitlan, one of 3 forts built by Mexico in Texas, situated above El Camino Real (The King's Highway) crossing on Brazos River. North of the road was Sterling Robertson's Colony; south, the colony of Stephen F. Austin. In 1840 on the Old Road, Civil Engineer George B. Erath (1813-1891) platted town of Caldwell, named for noted Indian fighter Mathew ("Old Paint") Caldwell. In 1846, Erath introduced in First Legislature of State of Texas a bill creating Burleson County out of land then in Milam and Washington counties. It was named for Gen. Edward Burleson (1793-1851), under whom many local men had fought in the Texas War for Independence and in Indian Wars. Gen. Burleson was a congressman, senator and vice president of the Republic of Texas; also was in first State Senate. Plantation system prevailed until Civil War (1861-1865). Burleson lost some area when Lee County was created in 1874. In 1880 the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway built into county; soon afterward, Houston & Texas Central added more rail mileage. This is fourth courthouse for county. Economy is based on farming, oil, and miscellaneous products. (1970)

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Things to Do in Caldwell

food 20.5 mi away
Snow's BBQ

Texas Monthly's #1 BBQ. Only open Saturday mornings in tiny Lexington.
historical 24.2 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…

Everything Near Caldwell

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

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