317 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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College Station, TX
College Station's history began in 1860 when the Houston and Texas Central Railway started building through the region. The city was chosen as the location for the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, a…
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The University That Predated Its Own City by 62 Years
· 0.6 mi
Most cities have universities. College Station is a city that a university essentially built. Texas A&M opened its doors in 1876, but the surrounding community did not incorporate as a city until 1938, sixty-two years…
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The Electric Railway That Linked Bryan and A&M
· 0.6 mi
For about two decades, you could ride an electric streetcar between downtown Bryan and the Texas A&M campus. The interurban line began carrying passengers in 1910, connecting the isolated campus to the nearest real…
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How A&M Became a Modern University in Two Years
· 0.6 mi
For most of its history, Texas A&M was an all-male military college. Then the nineteen sixties arrived and changed almost everything at once. In 1963, the institution was renamed from the Agricultural and Mechanical…
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The City Named by Train Conductors
· 0.7 mi
College Station did not get its name from a city council or a founder. It got its name from train conductors. When Texas A&M opened in 1876 as the state's first public college, the campus sat alone in the countryside…
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The Campus That Was Its Own Town
· 0.8 mi
When Texas A&M opened in 1876, it sat about four miles from the nearest town, Bryan. There were no suburbs, no nearby neighborhoods, no place for faculty to live except the campus itself. So the university built five…
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The Man Who Built College Station
· 0.8 mi
College Station was a new city in 1938, and it needed someone to shape what it would become. That person was Ernest Langford, an architecture professor at Texas A&M who served as mayor for twenty-six years, beginning in…
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A&M's On-Campus School Experiment
· 0.8 mi
Texas A&M needed a school it could practice on. In 1920, the university created one: a public school on campus, called A&M Consolidated, so education students could do their practice teaching in a real classroom. Campus…
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Bryan & College Interurban Railway
· 0.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the path of the Bryan and College Interurban Railway. Back in 1909, Bryan's mayor and the Retail Merchants Association dreamed up this electric trolley line to connect their town of 4,000 to the…
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The Dixie Chicken
· 1.0 mi
The Dixie Chicken is the oldest and most famous bar on College Station's Northgate strip, open across from Texas A&M since 1974. Named after a Little Feat album, it is the birthplace of the Aggie ring-dunk tradition and…
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Duddley's Draw
· 1.0 mi
Duddley's Draw is one of the original dive bars on College Station's Northgate strip, in business for nearly fifty years. It's known for a laid-back vibe, free pool and darts, cheap drinks, and live music that leans…
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Texas A&M Corps of Cadets
· 1.0 mi · Historical Marker
Soon after its opening in 1876, the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (Texas A&M) established the Corps of Cadets to fulfill its mandate to instruct its students (all-male until the early 1960s) in military…
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Texas AMC and WWI
· 1.0 mi · Historical Marker
World War I allowed the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas to expand beyond military training and directly contribute to the war effort with staff and students volunteering for service in large numbers.…
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Texas A&M University
· 1.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the historic campus of Texas A&M University. Back when it opened in 1876, the campus was pretty isolated. The university needed housing for its professors and staff, so they built five brick homes…
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Breeding a Crop That Laughs at Drought
· 1.1 mi
Some crops give up the moment the weather turns harsh. Sorghum is not one of them. It is a tough cereal grain that thrives in the heat and dryness of West Texas, in fields where corn would shrivel and die. At Texas A&M,…
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College Station Railroad Depots
· 1.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through College Station right now, and this spot is where a town got its name! Back in 1871, commissioners were picking a site for the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas, and the Houston and…
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Main Drill Field, Texas A&M University
· 1.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the heart of Texas A&M's historic campus, the Main Drill Field. Opened in 1876, A&M was founded with a Congressional mandate to teach military tactics, and this field was the center of it all. Cadets…
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Where Texas Learned to Farm With Science
· 1.2 mi
College Station is home to Texas A&M, a school that helped teach an entire state how to farm with science. It opened in 1876 as the first public college in Texas. A few private colleges came before it, but A&M was the…
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Farming by the Square Foot
· 1.2 mi
For most of history, a farmer treated a whole field the same way: same water, same fertilizer, same seed spacing, edge to edge. The trouble is that a field is never really uniform. One corner drains fast and stays dry,…
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Letting the Dirt Ask for Water
· 1.2 mi
Imagine if the soil itself could raise a hand and say, I am thirsty, water me now. That is basically what smart irrigation does. Small sensors buried in the ground constantly measure how much moisture is in the soil at…
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Martin's Place
· 1.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Martin's Place, a roadside institution that first opened its doors in December of 1924. Martin Kapchinskie bought this land along a simple country road connecting Bryan to Texas A&M University and…
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Early Play-By-Play Radio Broadcast of a College Football Game
· 1.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past College Station, where, back in 1921, Texas A&M students pulled off a radio first for the Lone Star State. The year before, a plan to broadcast a football game failed, but they tried again in 1921…
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The Bonfire That Stopped
· 1.6 mi
For nearly a century, Texas A&M students built one of the largest bonfires in college sports, a stack of logs that burned before the annual football game against the University of Texas. The tradition began in the early…
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Carter, Richard
· 1.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the area where Richard Carter, a Virginia native and War of 1812 veteran, settled in 1831. He came from Alabama to claim a land grant in the Stephen F. Austin Colony. Carter quickly became one of the…
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First National Bank of Bryan
· 1.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're cruising through Bryan, and right here is the site of a Texas financial institution that's been part of this community for over a century. The First National Bank of Bryan started way back in 1862 as a private…
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When Rommel's Soldiers Came to Texas
· 1.9 mi
About twenty-five miles northwest of Bryan, on the edge of Hearne in Robertson County, lies a quiet field with a strange history. During World War II, this was the site of Camp Hearne, a massive prisoner-of-war camp.…
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From WWII Airfield to High-Tech Proving Ground
· 1.9 mi
As you drive on the western edge of Bryan, you might pass the RELLIS Campus, a place that embodies the transformation from 20th-century warfare to 21st-century technology. This land began in 1943 as Bryan Army Air…
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A Tale of Two Cities: Bryan and College Station
· 1.9 mi
The road you're likely driving on, Texas Avenue, is the artery that connects Bryan and its twin city, College Station. Understanding the relationship between these two is key to understanding this area. Bryan is the…
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Making Wine in Cotton Country
· 1.9 mi
In the 1970s, if you told a Texas farmer you were going to grow wine grapes in Bryan, they would have laughed at you. This was cotton and cattle country. But a young couple, Paul and Merrill Bonarrigo, decided to try…
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The Library Built by a Steel Baron
· 1.9 mi
If you drive down Main Street in Downtown Bryan, you'll see a handsome, classical-style building that looks like it belongs on a university campus. That's the Carnegie, and it's a direct link to one of America's richest…
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African American Education in College Station
· 2.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through College Station, and right here is the story of African American education in this town. It all started back in 1871 with the Public School Act. For years, classes were scattered across small…
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The 12th Man
· 2.1 mi
If you are here on a football weekend, you will see the student section at Kyle Field stand for the entire game. That is the 12th Man, and here is where it comes from. On January 2, 1922, Texas A&M played Centre…
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The Aggie Bonfire Memorial
· 2.1 mi
For 90 years, Texas A&M students built a massive bonfire, a symbol of their 'burning desire' to beat their rivals, the University of Texas. It was a legendary feat of student engineering and grit. But on November 18,…
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CopyCat: The World's First Cloned Pet
· 2.1 mi
Here in College Station, at the Texas A&M College of Veterinary Medicine, scientists made history with a kitten. In 2001, they announced the birth of 'CC,' short for CopyCat. She was the world's first-ever cloned pet.…
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Reveille, First Lady of Aggieland
· 2.1 mi
In College Station, the most revered figure on campus might just be a dog. She's Reveille, a full-blood collie known as the First Lady of Aggieland. The tradition started in 1931 when some cadets found a stray dog on…
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The Bush Presidential Library
· 2.1 mi
College Station gained a new level of national prominence in 1997. That's when the George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum opened here on the west side of the Texas A&M campus. The decision by the 41st…
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Shiloh Community
· 2.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past what used to be Shiloh, a community founded in the 1860s by Czech, German, and Polish immigrants. They built a life here with family farms, a community center, a school, even a vineyard and a…
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The World's First Cloned Cat Was Born Here
· 2.4 mi
College Station made genetic history on December 22, 2001, when a brown-and-white kitten named CC was born at Texas A&M. She was the world's first successfully cloned cat. Researchers created her through nuclear…
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A&M College Consolidated Rural School
· 2.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the birthplace of College Station's school system! Back in 1909, Texas A&M needed a school for the local kids, but there weren't enough students. So, A&M's president teamed up with a professor and…
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Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: A&M Consolidated (College Station)
· 2.7 mi
A&M Consolidated (College Station, TX) placed on the 5A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Joseph Young (0.537 avg); Luke Hargett (0.469 avg, 2 HR).
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Baine, Noel Moses
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what was once Stephen F. Austin's colony, and right here, in what is now Brazos County, was the home of Moses Baine. He arrived in Texas from Ireland in 1830 with his wife, Cecilia, and quickly…
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Carter, Richard
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Brazos County, and right here is where Richard Carter, one of the very first white settlers, staked his claim back in 1831. Imagine arriving with your family to an area described as an unbroken…
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Hanover, Hiram
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Brazos County, and right here is an area once known as Hanover. It was named for Hiram Hanover, a Maine native who came to Texas in 1838, drawn by tales of fortune. He first taught school near…
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Millican, Elliott McNeil
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Millican, Texas, a town with roots stretching back to Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists. Right here, Elliott McNeil Millican arrived with his family in 1821. He became a physician, a…
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Millican, TX
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
Millican is on the Southern Pacific line at the intersection of Farm roads 2154 and 159, between the Brazos and Navasota rivers fifteen miles southeast of College Station in southern Brazos County. The rolling…
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Brasher, Semore C.
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what is now Brazos County, Texas, and right here is where Semore Brasher organized a company of Confederate soldiers in the fall of 1861. He was a farmer and a Mason, but he answered the call to…
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Curtis, James, Jr.
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what is now Brazos County, and you're passing through the story of James Curtis, Jr. He was an 'Old Three Hundred' settler, arriving in Texas with his family in 1824. He received his land title on…
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Daniel, John Warwick
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what is now Brazos County, but back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1862</say-as>, this was Camp Speight near Millican. Right here, John Warwick Daniel, a farmer who’d moved his family…
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Gillespie, Clayton Crawford
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Brazos County, not far from where, back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1862</say-as>, Clayton Crawford Gillespie accepted command of the Twenty-fifth Texas Cavalry Regiment. He was a…
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Millican, William Templeton
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what is now Brazos County, and you're passing through the story of William Templeton Millican. He arrived in Texas back in December of 1821, one of Stephen F. Austin's original Old Three Hundred…
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Boonville, TX
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
Boonville, the first county seat of Brazos County, was on Farm Road 158, which is also known as Boonville Road, two miles northeast of the site of what is now Bryan. The Republic of Texas Congress appointed a…
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Wellborn, TX
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
Wellborn, on Farm Road 2154 (known as Wellborn Road) and the Southern Pacific Railroad four miles east of College Station and eight miles west of Millican in southern Brazos County, came into existence in 1867 as a…
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Hope, James
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what is now southwestern Brazos County, and right here, in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1824</say-as>, James Hope became one of Stephen F. Austin's original Old Three Hundred colonists.…
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Harvey, TX
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
Harvey is on Farm Road 30 some two miles southeast of Bryan in central Brazos County. It was established in 1879 and named for Col. Harvey Mitchell, an early settler of Booneville. Mitchell was known as the "Father of…
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Mudville, TX
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
Mudville, also known as Steele's Store, is located at the intersection of farm roads 50 and 1687, on the Southern Pacific Railroad eleven miles west of Bryan in far western Brazos County. The area was settled in the…
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Tabor, TX
· 2.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
Tabor is on Farm Road 974 nine miles north of Bryan in northwestern Brazos County. Maj. M. J. Tabor settled at the site in 1873, and by 1876 twelve families lived in the community. In 1884 a general store was built…
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Locomotive 4141: The Train That Carried a President Home
· 2.9 mi
Union Pacific locomotive No. 4141, an SD70ACe nicknamed for George H. W. Bush, is painted to resemble Air Force One in honor of the 41st U.S. president. Unveiled near the George H. W. Bush Presidential Library in…
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Woman's Club
· 2.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bryan, and right here is the site of the Woman's Club. It started way back in October of 1895 as the Mutual Improvement Circle, with twenty members meeting in their homes. Their goal? To improve…
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George H.W. Bush Presidential Library
· 3.0 mi · Historical Marker
Presidential library and burial site of George H.W. Bush and Barbara Bush, located on the campus of Texas A&M University in College Station.
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Site of Odd Fellows University and Orphans Home
· 3.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of what was once Odd Fellows University, founded way back in 1870 by a local lodge. This wasn't just any school; it was a two-story building packed with classes for students of all ages,…
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St. Joseph Catholic Church
· 3.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bryan, and right here is the site of St. Joseph Catholic Church. Catholic services started here as early as 1869, but the first actual church building went up around 1871. Imagine this: fire guts…
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First Presbyterian Church
· 3.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bryan, and right here is the site of the First Presbyterian Church. Organized way back in November of 1867, this was actually the second church group to form in Bryan. They built their first…
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Site of the Town of Boonville
· 3.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Boonville, a town that once held the county seat. Established in 1841 and named for Mordecai Boon, it thrived for over two decades. But progress, in the form of a railroad, would spell…
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Weddington, Wesa
· 3.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Bryan, where Wesa Weddington spent her career shaping young minds. A granddaughter of pioneer settler Harvey Mitchell, Wesa began teaching Latin and Spanish right here in Bryan's public schools back…
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First Christian Church of Bryan/College Station
· 3.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bryan, home to the First Christian Church. Organized way back in 1866, this congregation met in local businesses and homes before building its first sanctuary in 1868. The church faced a major…
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Edge House
· 3.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Edge House in Bryan, a grand home built in 1925 for Eugene Edge, a prominent local merchant. Look for its classic Georgian Revival style – notice the symmetrical design, the Doric columns at the…
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McMichael-Wilson House
· 3.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the McMichael-Wilson House in Bryan, a beautiful example of Queen Anne architecture. Built in 1904 for George Washington McMichael, a lumberman and county clerk, it was purchased in 1912 by Alfred…
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Cavitt House
· 3.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Cavitt House in Bryan, a home with a story that spans over a century. Attorney William R. Cavitt bought this city block back in 1875, the same year he married Mary Mitchell. Around 1880, they…
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Site of Villa Maria Ursuline Academy
· 3.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Villa Maria Ursuline Academy, a school that brought education and service to Bryan in the early 1900s. Founded by Ursuline Sisters with a long history stretching back to Italy in 1535,…
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Site of First Public School in Bryan
· 3.6 mi · Historical Marker
Hey road-trippers! You're passing the site of Bryan's very first public school. Back in 1877, Bryan voted to create a free public graded school, a bold move when most education was private. Citizens quickly donated this…
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Waldrop House
· 3.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Waldrop House, a prime example of American Four-Square architecture. Built for Allister and Nanne Waldrop in the early 1900s, this home was designed by Houston architects Jones & Tabor. Allister…
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Wilkerson, A.W.
· 3.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're cruising past the A.W. Wilkerson house in Bryan, built in 1912 by contractor Charlie Jenkins. This was the era when Bryan's business leaders flocked to this neighborhood. Banker A.W. Wilkerson owned it until…
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Wipprecht House
· 3.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Wipprecht House. Designed in 1898 by Bryan architect George Washington Jenkins, this home was constructed for Julia Kapp Wipprecht, who was a well-known local philanthropist. Mrs. Wipprecht lived in…
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Edge, Eugene
· 3.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the former home of Eugene Edge, an early Bryan businessman. <break time="400ms"/> This house, built between 1901 and 1902 by local builder Charles Jenkins, is a fascinating blend of architectural…
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First Methodist Church of Bryan
· 3.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bryan, home to the First Methodist Church. This congregation was organized in 1868 by The Rev. H.G. Horton. The church has seen several buildings and renovations over the years, with its current…
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Barry, Maggie Wilkins Hill
· 3.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through College Station, home of Texas A&M University. Right here, in the early 20th century, Maggie Barry was pioneering a movement to support rural women. Hired by A&M in 1918, she became the first…
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Moran, Charles Barthell
· 3.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through the heart of Aggieland, and right here, Texas A&M owes a lot to Charles 'Uncle Charley' Moran. He coached football here from 1909 to 1914, leading the Aggies to their best winning percentage ever…
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College Station, TX
· 3.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through College Station, a town born from a railroad stop and a dream. Back in 1871, this spot was chosen for a new agricultural and mechanical college. By 1877, a post office opened right near the…
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Astin-Porter Home
· 3.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Astin-Porter Home in Bryan, a grand Classical Revival residence built for Onah Astin, wife of a cotton planter. Construction started in 1901 and took two years, featuring a striking two-story…
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Asbury, Samuel Erson
· 3.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through College Station, home to Texas A&M University. Right here lived Samuel Erson Asbury, a chemist who became fascinated with Texas history. Asbury believed music could tell historical stories. He…
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Connell, John Henry
· 3.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what is now Brazos County, and right here is where a Texan named John Henry Connell revolutionized farming. Back in 1893, Connell took charge of the Texas Agricultural Experiment Station. He…
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Nagle, James C.
· 3.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Brazos County, and right here is where James C. Nagle spent nearly thirty years shaping Texas engineering. From 1890 to 1913, he was a professor of civil engineering at the Agricultural and…
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St. Joseph School
· 3.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of St. Joseph School in Bryan. Back in the early 1890s, Father Joseph Pelnar of St. Joseph Catholic Church built this parish school. For decades, it served the children of East European…
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Colson, Esther Neveille Higgs
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
Neveille Colson, Texas legislator, was born on July 18, 1902, to Walter J. and Ollie (Jowers) Higgs in Bryan, Texas. She attended school in Bryan and entered Baylor University in Waco in 1923. After a year she took a…
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Mims, Henry Lucius
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
Henry Lucius Mims, founder of the National Alliance of Postal Employees, composer, geologist, and piano manufacturer, was born on August 13, 1873, in Bryan, Texas, to Alfred and Carrie Mims. His early years were spent…
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Ward, Seth
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
Seth Ward, Methodist bishop, son of Samuel Goode and Sarah Ann Ward, was born in a log cabin near Bryan, Texas, on November 15, 1858. His parents tutored him at home. On January 5, 1886, he married Margaret E. South at…
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Bryan, TX
· 3.8 mi
Bryan's founding is marked by its establishment as the county seat of Brazos County in 1866, replacing Boonville. A post office was opened the same year, and after the Civil War, the Houston and Texas Central Railroad…
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Brazos County
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Brazos County, a place with a story that goes back thousands of years. But right here, the story of settlement really kicks off in 1841. The county seat was established and named Boonville, after…
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Bryan, William Joel
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Bryan, Texas, a town named for William Joel Bryan. He was a man who saw Texas through revolution and reconstruction. Bryan fought with Sam Houston during the Texas Revolution, though he missed the…
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Courthouse Cedar
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Bryan, Texas, where a single, ancient eastern red cedar tree has witnessed the rise and fall of five county courthouses. It started as a sapling back in 1841, near the first temporary courthouse.…
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Rountree, Frances Mitchell
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Brazos County, and right here is where Frances Mitchell Rountree made history. Born in Llano back in 1880, she became a newspaperwoman, managing the Bryan Daily Eagle. After her husband passed…
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E.J. Jenkins House
· 3.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the E.J. Jenkins House, a classic Queen Anne home built right here in 1893. Charlie Jenkins, a prominent Bryan builder, constructed it for his brother, Edwin James Jenkins. E.J. was an English…
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La Salle Hotel
· 3.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're cruising through downtown Bryan, and right here, you're passing the La Salle Hotel. Completed in 1928, it was the tallest building in town, a real sign of Bryan's boom as a railroad hub. Imagine this place…
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Barron, Wingate Stuart, Sr.
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Brazos County, near Bryan, and you're passing through the heart of Texas politics from the 1920s. Wingate Stuart Barron, Sr., started as a school superintendent, then became a lawyer. But his real…
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Goodwin, George Iverson
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Brazos County, and right here in Bryan, George Iverson Goodwin made his mark. Born in Georgia, Goodwin moved to Texas as a boy and studied law in Richmond. After serving in the Civil War, he…
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Gorbet, Chester Spaulding
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what is now Brazoria County, an area that was once home to Chester Spaulding Gorbet, one of Stephen F. Austin's original colonists. He arrived in Texas back in the winter of 1821-22, eventually…
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Smythe, David Porter
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Bryan, Texas, home to Texas A&M University. Right here, back in the late 1870s and early 1880s, Dr. David Porter Smythe served as the college physician. His salary? A unique five-dollar assessment…
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Wilson, Lorenzo Jackson
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Bryan, Texas, a town that Lorenzo Jackson Wilson helped lead. Wilson was a legislator and a Civil War captain. He served in the Mexican War, joining up in Rusk County in 1846. His unit was headed…
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Hood, Dorothy Rose
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Bryan, Texas, the birthplace of Dorothy Rose Hood. Born in 1918, she grew up to become a significant visual artist, spending decades in Mexico City where she knew Frida Kahlo and was mentored by…
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Brazos County
· 3.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Brazos County, a place with a name that changed almost as much as its county seat! Originally part of Stephen F. Austin's colony, it was first carved out of Washington County in 1841 and called…
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The CW&BV and I&GN Railroads in Bryan
· 3.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bryan, a city whose growth was powered by two major railroads. The Calvert, Waco & Brazos Valley line arrived in 1900, building a depot that served as a hub for commerce and social life until it…
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Bryan, TX
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Bryan, Texas, a town born from a railroad deal. Back in 1859, William Joel Bryan, nephew of Stephen F. Austin, donated land for a new townsite to the Houston and Texas Central Railroad. The…
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Haswell, George Tyler
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what is now Brazos County, and right here in Bryan, George Tyler Haswell was a key player in the town's early growth. Back in 1867, Haswell helped establish St. Andrew's Parish, the very first…
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Law, Francis Marion, Jr.
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Bryan, Texas, the birthplace of Francis Marion Law Jr. He started his career right here, as a bookkeeper at the First National Bank of Bryan in 1897. But Law didn't just stay local. He rose…
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Newland, Hardin S.
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Brazos County, not far from Bryan, where Captain Hardin S. Newland faced a political battle after the Civil War. After serving the Confederacy, Newland returned to Texas and founded the Rusk…
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Randal, John Leonard
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Brazos County, not far from Bryan. Right here is where John Leonard Randal lived out his final years. Born in North Carolina in 1800, Randal came to Texas in 1838, settling first near San…
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Myers, TX
· 3.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through eastern Burleson County, near the Brazos River. This spot, once known as Pelham, became Myers in the late 1800s. The name change came when Joseph Allen Myers, the postmaster in Bryan, requested a…
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Allen Academy
· 3.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Allen Academy, a school with a history stretching back over a century! It started in 1886 as Madison Academy in Madisonville, founded by educator John Hodges Allen. By 1896, his brother…
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Town Named for William Joel Bryan
· 3.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bryan, a city named for the man we're talking about, William Joel Bryan. He arrived in Texas back in 1831, a nephew of Stephen F. Austin himself. Bryan fought in the Battle of Bexar during the…
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Queen Theatre
· 3.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bryan, and right here is the site of the Queen Theatre. It's been showing movies since 1913, taking on the name 'The Queen' in 1914. Originally housed in the Stoddard Hotel, it was rebuilt in 1939…
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Brazos County Confederate Commissioners Court
· 3.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Brazos County Confederate Commissioners Court. In the heat of the Civil War, these officials weren't just meeting; they were running a home front war effort. They supplied horses,…
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First Baptist Church
· 3.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bryan, and right here, back on November 21st, 1866, a Baptist church was organized with sixteen members. Mrs. Sara Dodson wrote, 'I hope a better day is dawning.' Their first house of worship,…
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Mitchell, Harvey
· 3.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Brazos County, home to Harvey Mitchell, often called the 'Father of Brazos County.' Mitchell arrived in Texas way back in 1839, joining the minute men defending the frontier. He served in nearly…
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Allen Chapel A. M. E. Church
· 3.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Allen Chapel A.M.E. Church, a cornerstone of Bryan's African American community. Services were held in brush arbors before Reverend Emmanuel Hammitt became the first minister in 1866. The…
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Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church
· 4.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church in Bryan. Its story starts way back in 1864, with services held in the nearby town of Millican. But a devastating yellow fever epidemic swept through Millican, forcing…
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Isom Palmer
· 4.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bryan, a town that Isom Palmer eventually called home. But before settling here in the 1870s, Palmer's life was packed with Texas history. He fought in the Siege of Bexar in 1835 and later served…
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Confederate Veterans in Bryan City Cemetery
· 4.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Bryan, and the city cemetery here is the final resting place for at least 161 Confederate veterans. These soldiers, after fighting in the Civil War, came to Bryan to help build the new settlement.…
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Rock Prairie School and Church
· 4.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Rock Prairie School and Church, a place that served German immigrants right here in the Brazos Valley. Back in 1891, Adam Royder donated land for a one-room schoolhouse. Local…
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Bryan City Cemetery
· 4.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Bryan City Cemetery, established way back on June 13th, 1868. Just three years after the townsite of Bryan itself was dedicated, landowner J.C. Hubert sold this twenty-acre plot to the city for a…
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Moravian Cemetery
· 4.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Moravian Cemetery, a small piece of Czech heritage here in Brazos County. Land was sold way back in 1889, specifically for a Moravian burial ground. Most of the eleven headstones you might see…
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Jenkins, Charlie Eric
· 4.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of a man who shaped Bryan's skyline. Charlie E. Jenkins arrived from England in 1873, settling here in 1878. He became one of Bryan's most prolific builders, known for his distinctive…
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Santa Teresa Catholic Church
· 4.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Santa Teresa Catholic Church in Bryan. In 1929, Father Frank Urbanovsky, known as Padre Panchito, began ministering to the local Mexican and Mexican American agricultural workers. Using a…
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Ibarra Elementary School
· 4.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Ibarra Elementary School. Opened in 1935, it was a two-room wooden building for Spanish-speaking children, grades one through four. Named for Reverend Guillermo Ibarra, who believed…
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Mount Calvary Cemetery
· 4.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Mount Calvary Cemetery, a final resting place with a story tied to a city ordinance. Back in the late 1800s, Bryan's St. Joseph Catholic Church served a growing community. For years, parishioners…
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Leonard School
· 4.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Leonard School, which opened in the late 1890s on land donated by Sam Luther. This two-room schoolhouse served students through the eighth grade, emphasizing vocational agriculture…
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Old Bethel Cemetery
· 5.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Old Bethel Cemetery, established in 1869 when Mary A. Williams donated land to Bethel Church. It has served the Harvey community and surrounding areas ever since. The cemetery is maintained today by…
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The Graveyard Came First
· 5.3 mi
The burial ground here is older than the church that came to own it. James Peters was laid in family land in 1870, and Robert Martin followed in 1871. Saints Rest Baptist Church organized in 1873, and the next year…
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A Place That Needed Nobody
· 5.3 mi
For a stretch of years this community needed nobody. Steep Hollow had a general store, a cotton gin, a gristmill and a schoolhouse, which in the eighteen hundreds is very nearly everything a place requires. Walter…
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Tree Stumps Carved From Stone
· 5.3 mi
Walk the cemetery off Farm to Market Road 1179 and you can read the whole fraternal history of rural Texas in stone. There are Civil War veterans buried here, plain obelisks, and the carved tree-stump markers the…
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The Name Is Just a Description
· 5.3 mi
Some Texas place names are poetry. This one is just a description. The community took its name from Steep Hollow Branch, a small tributary that drops down into Wickson Creek northeast of Bryan, and the land here really…
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Absorbed Into District Number Ten
· 5.3 mi
Every one-room school in Brazos County eventually got swallowed by something bigger, and Steep Hollow's turn came between 1947 and 1953, when its district was folded with several others into District Number Ten, the…
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2017 UIL 5A Division 2 Football State Champions
· 5.5 mi
College Station High School (College Station, TX): Most recent: 20-19 over Aledo · 2017 5A Division 2 final.
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Wellborn Cemetery
· 6.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Wellborn Cemetery, a quiet resting place that's been part of this community since the late 1800s. The town of Wellborn itself sprang up in 1867, right along the railroad. Just a few years later,…
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Something on the Shoulder at the Brazos Bridge
· 7.3 mi
If you're crossing the Brazos on Farm to Market sixty in the middle of the night, here's something to think about. At two forty five in the morning on the second of September, twenty seventeen, a driver heading west had…
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Bryan Air Force Base
· 8.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Bryan Army Air Field, which began construction in August 1942. This was the only instrument instructor school for a time, and it hosted over a thousand Women Army Service Pilots.…
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Wixon Cemetery
· 8.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through the area once known as Wixon, settled in the late 1860s by folks from the war-torn South. This cemetery holds many of those early settlers, their descendants, and at least seventeen Confederate…
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Two Spellings, One Family
· 9.4 mi
Look at a map around here and you will catch the same family name spelled two different ways. The Wickson family settled this stretch of Brazos County back in the 1840s, and one of them, Byrum Wickson, turned a sizable…
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The First Wixon
· 9.4 mi
The first Wixon had nothing to do with suburbs. It was a rural farming community, settled in the late 1860s by families who had left war-torn southern states looking for ground to start over on. By the 1870s they had…
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Closed, Then Started Over
· 9.4 mi
Every institution this community built eventually closed. The Wixon school and the Cumberland Presbyterian church both shut their doors in the 1930s, and in 1968 the old school property was simply deeded over to the…
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Nobody Agrees On The Birthday
· 9.4 mi
Here is a small mystery. Nobody quite agrees on when this town legally became a town. The Texas Municipal League lists the year of incorporation as 1987. The Handbook of Texas and the Texas Almanac both hedge and say it…
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The Gate Off The Farm Road
· 9.4 mi
Take Farm to Market Road 2776 off the highway and go about six tenths of a mile, and you will come to a cemetery gate. Behind it is the oldest thing here by a wide margin. The earliest recorded burial belongs to Nancy…
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A Runway You Can Step Over
· 9.4 mi
One of the smallest incorporated cities in Brazos County has its own runway. Not for full sized aircraft. Out on Farm to Market Road 2776 sits the Dan Gray Memorial Flying Field, home to the Brazos Valley radio control…
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They Dug Their Own Wells
· 9.4 mi
In 1969 a small group of citizens out here in northeast Brazos County got tired of waiting on somebody else and built their own water system. Look what it turned into. The Wickson Creek Special Utility District now…
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The Valley That Is Not
· 9.4 mi
The name says valley, but you are up near the roof of the county. Brazos County runs from about two hundred feet above sea level to roughly three hundred and fifty, and this town sits right around three hundred and…
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Two Roads Crossed
· 9.4 mi
No river landing here. No railroad depot, no county seat courthouse. This town exists for one plain reason: two roads cross. United States Highway 190 runs through, sharing pavement with State Highway 21, and Farm to…
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Twenty Four Miles To The Navasota
· 9.4 mi
The creek that gave this place its name does not begin here and it does not end here. Wickson Creek rises about a mile and a half northwest of Tabor over in central Brazos County, then runs southeast for twenty four…
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Lightning Came Down The Chimney
· 9.7 mi
On the afternoon of May 3rd, 1904, a heavy rainstorm rolled over this community and a farmer named D. F. Holland, forty-four years old, stepped out onto his back gallery and left his family inside. Lightning struck near…
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This Was Little Georgia First
· 9.7 mi
Before it was Reliance, this was Little Georgia , named for where the wagon train came from. Settlers rolled into this corner of Brazos County in the early 1850s straight out of Georgia and called their patch of…
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Bitten By A Mad Mule
· 9.7 mi
Rabies out here used to mean a train ride. In March of 1910 a Reliance girl named Bessie Holland got bitten by a dog nobody could swear was healthy, and rather than gamble her family put her on a train to the Pasteur…
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The Well That Woke Up The Bottoms
· 9.7 mi
In 1957 somebody drilled the first irrigation well anybody had ever put into the Navasota River bottoms near here, and it changed what this land was worth. Two hundred forty feet deep, three hundred gallons a minute…
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Ninety-One Students, Then Ten People
· 9.7 mi
In 1905 the school here had ninety-one students and two teachers, and those same two teachers were also covering nearby Independence. Five years later the Texas Almanac listed Reliance for the last time , population…
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Four Acres, One Deed, Three Purposes
· 9.7 mi
In April of 1874 two Bryan attorneys, M. J. Beale and B. K. Davis, handed over four acres out here for one very specific set of purposes: a church, a school, and a cemetery, all on the same piece of ground. That single…
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Reliance Church Cemetery
· 9.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the historic Reliance Church Cemetery, a resting place that started as part of a community called Little Georgia. Settlers from the Southeast, seeking new opportunities after the Civil War,…
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Santa's Wonderland — Texas's 150-Acre Christmas Park
· 10.2 mi · Verified Web
Santa's Wonderland started as a drive-through Christmas light display on Highway 6 south of College Station and grew into what its operators now bill as the largest Christmas park in the world. The grounds cover roughly…
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Museum of the American G.I.
· 10.4 mi · Local Knowledge
You're about a mile from the Museum of the American G I — and it's not your usual military museum. Most museums put tanks on concrete pads with signs you can't lean on. This one runs them. Brent Mullins, an Aggie who…
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El Camino Real
· 10.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past a piece of Texas history that's literally a thousand miles long! El Camino Real, the King's Highway, connected Saltillo, Mexico, all the way to Louisiana. The oldest part, the 'Trail of the Padres,'…
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The Navasota River's Many Names
· 10.8 mi
The Navasota River, in central-east Texas, has carried several names. The indigenous people knew it as the Nabasoto. The Spanish explorer Domingo Teran de los Rios called it the San Cypriano; the Franciscan missionary…
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Alexander Cemetery
· 11.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Alexander Cemetery, a resting place with roots reaching back to Texas's earliest days. Legend says the first burial here was a child named Whitley, way back in 1854, though that grave is…
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Alexander Methodist Chapel
· 11.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Alexander Methodist Chapel, organized way back in 1854 by Robert Alexander, a circuit rider. The first church, built by settlers from hand-hewn logs, went up in 1856. Ten acres for…
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The Preacher Who Came for the Horses
· 11.1 mi
In the 1840s a band of men rode into this settlement claiming to be preachers. The leader stood up and delivered a sermon, and while he had the whole community sitting there listening, his partners quietly walked off…
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The Town Got Up and Walked to the Tracks
· 11.1 mi
The Houston and Texas Central Railway came through in 1868 and did not quite come through here. The original settlement sat about a mile east of where you are, and the state marker for it still stands out that way along…
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Saddletrees and Barreled Beef
· 11.1 mi
Robert Henry put up the first cotton gin at Staggers Point in 1850, and from there this little place got oddly specific about what it manufactured. By the 1860s it had what may have been the first saddletree shop in…
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Three Stores, a Racetrack, and a Gun Club
· 11.1 mi
Three stores, a racetrack, and a gun club. That was this settlement by the 1840s, which tells you a fair amount about how a Saturday went out here. It had already sent men to war by then. The state marker credits…
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Benchley, TX
· 11.1 mi · Local history
Benchley, Texas sits at the crossroads of old cattle trails and newer farm-to-market roads in northern Robertson County. Unlike many of its neighbors, Benchley never boomed with cotton production, instead remaining a…
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Robert Henry
· 11.2 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…
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El Camino Real
· 11.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're cruising down the highway, but this road has seen centuries of Texas history! This is El Camino Real, also known as the Old San Antonio Road or Old Spanish Trail. Imagine, this path was forged by buffalo and…
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Staggers Point
· 11.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Robertson County, passing the site of Staggers Point. This was the earliest large community in Robertson's Colony, settled by Irishmen who first arrived in America in 1821. After stops in South…
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60 Acres Became Dabney Hill
· 11.5 mi
By 1870, Daniel Dabney Sr. — born in Virginia in 1815, enslaved in Burleson County before emancipation — bought 60 acres on a hill near what's now Snook. He kept buying land for his family, and together they built…
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The Lady in Black
· 11.6 mi
Off Farm to Market fifty, in the Brazos bottom north of Snook, stands a small mission church built with cotton, and, if you believe one family, with a vision. The Sicilian families who settled this stretch of the Brazos…
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Brazos River Levee
· 11.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of a devastating flood that reshaped life in Burleson County. In <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1899</say-as>, a massive rainstorm caused devastating floods, killing 35 people and…
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San Salvador Mission Church
· 11.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Caldwell, and right here is the San Salvador Mission Church. This place tells a story of Italian immigrants who arrived in Texas back in 1894, hailing from Cefalu, Sicily. They named this mission…
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Kurten, TX
· 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Kurten, Texas, a community with roots stretching back to the mid-1800s. It all started with Henry Kurten, a German soldier who loved Texas so much he decided to stay. After working as a freighter,…
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The German Church on the Hill
· 11.8 mi
If you want to understand Kurten, look to the Zion Church. Established in 1892 with the Reverend P. Vollbrecht as its first pastor, it was formed by some thirteen families, most of them German, on land donated by German…
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Kurten, TX
· 11.8 mi
In April 1906, Kurten, Texas, experienced a unique event that shaped its history. The town, located in northern Brazos County, faced an unexpected problem with guinea fowl, originally from Africa, which had become…
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When the School Bell Went Silent
· 11.8 mi
For the first half of the twentieth century, the Kurten school stood alongside the church as the center of the universe out here - the common ground where every farm family met daily. And for a while Kurten was the…
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Upstairs at the General Store
· 11.8 mi
The most interesting room in Tabor was on the second floor. The space above the general store started out as a meeting hall for the Woodmen of the World, the fraternal lodge that sold burial insurance to farmers, and…
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Several Languages, One Cotton Crop
· 11.8 mi
The founders here did not all come from the same country, which was unusual even for Texas. The original settlers of Tabor were Bohemian, German, Anglo and Black families working land side by side, and around 1900…
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The Post Office Decided It
· 11.8 mi
The name got attached almost by accident. Major M. J. Tabor settled this spot in 1873, and by 1876 a dozen families were farming around him. But it was John Tabor who, in 1888, opened a post office inside the general…
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Twelve Families and a Gin
· 11.8 mi
Twelve families by 1876, a general store by 1884, and then things got serious. By 1896 Tabor had two general stores plus a flour mill and a cotton gin, which made it a genuine trading point for farms scattered across…
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The Schoolhouse That Refused to Die
· 11.8 mi
One building here has had two lives. In 1935 it was a five-room consolidated school, with several one-teacher schools still operating out in the countryside around it. Then in 1946 Tabor's school merged into Kurten's…
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Zion Church of Kurten
· 11.8 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Kurten, home to Zion Church, the oldest congregation of its kind in Brazos County. Founded in 1892 by thirteen families, mostly of German descent, the first rough oak building went up for just…
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Snook is Czech for Sausage
· 12.3 mi
You're in the heart of Texas Czech country. While many towns have historic roots, Snook's identity is still actively shaped by the culture of its Bohemian and Moravian founders. When they settled here in the…
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The Night Jerome Robinson Went Out to the Club at Tunis
· 12.3 mi
On the twenty eighth of December, 2001, a twenty one year old named Jerome David Robinson left his grandmother's place out in the country near Snook to go get a haircut. A man gave him a ride and dropped him at a club…
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The Night at the Snook Tavern
· 12.3 mi
In the summer of nineteen forty seven, a Snook deputy constable went to break up a fight at a tavern and never came home. It was a Saturday night in late July. Constable Robert Vajdak got the call and asked his deputy…
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Hank Williams's Next-to-Last Tour Stop
· 12.3 mi
Just before Christmas in nineteen fifty two, Hank Williams played Snook. He was twenty nine years old, the biggest name in country music, and he was falling apart. The Grand Ole Opry had fired him that August for…
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The Biggest Party in a Pasture
· 12.3 mi
As you drive along Farm to Market Road 60 near Snook, look out into the open fields. You might see a strange collection of permanent stages and structures sitting in a pasture. You've found the home of Chilifest. This…
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Snook, TX
· 12.3 mi
Since 1991, Snook has been home to Chilifest, an annual charity event that attracts some of the biggest names in country music. This two-day chili cook-off and concert draws more than 50,000 people each year. According…
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Two Men Robbed the Bank in Snook and Vanished
· 12.3 mi
On the seventh of October, 2011, two men walked into the Citizens State Bank here in Snook with guns and demanded money. What they did not plan on was who was walking in behind them. A local justice of the peace…
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Eight Hours on Farm to Market 60
· 12.3 mi
On the fourteenth of August, 2021, somebody robbed the Dollar General out on Farm to Market 60 near County Road 410, over toward Lake Somerville, and assaulted the clerk. Four days later Burleson County deputies drove…
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How Snook Won: The Free Throw Theory
· 12.3 mi
Snook's high school owns the Texas record for boys basketball, ten state championships, seven of them in a row from 1978 through 1984, out of a town of about five hundred people. So how does a school this size do that?…
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The Raid on County Road Two Seventy Eight
· 12.3 mi
Before dawn on the nineteenth of December, twenty thirteen, a team of about eight officers went through the door of a mobile home on County Road two seventy eight, about five miles south of Snook, without knocking. They…
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The Levee That Held the Flood In
· 12.3 mi
Between here and the Brazos, Burleson County once put its faith in a long wall of dirt, and it turned on them. The river flooded these bottoms in eighteen ninety nine, nineteen hundred, nineteen oh two and again in…
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The Fastest Family in Snook
· 12.3 mi
Everybody around here knows about Snook's basketball dynasty. Fewer people know that in the same years, some of the fastest kids in small school Texas came out of this same school, and a lot of them were named Kerr.…
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From Dabney Hill to the Fight for the Ballot
· 12.3 mi
A mile north of Snook is Dabney Hill, the community built by freed people after the Civil War. A boy born here in eighteen eighty six ended up in the middle of the fight over who got to vote in Texas. His name was…
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Nitroglycerin at the Snook Post Office
· 12.3 mi
In the first week of July, nineteen thirty nine, somebody blew the safe at the Snook post office with nitroglycerin. The post office sat inside the Fojt and Sebesta store. Early on a Tuesday morning, the burglars came…
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Merle's Ten-Foot Jail
· 12.3 mi
About three miles south of Snook, where County Roads two oh one and two seventy meet, there used to be a town called Merle. It had a post office from eighteen eighty three to nineteen nineteen, Czech families and then…
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William Templeton Millican
· 12.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Millican, a town named for William Templeton Millican. He arrived in Texas with his family in 1821, becoming one of Stephen F. Austin's Old Three Hundred colonists. Millican's land grant here was…
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Britain's Most Hated Fish
· 12.3 mi
The word snook comes from the Dutch snoek, meaning pike, and a fish called snoek once became a national joke in Britain. This town, for the record, is named for a postmaster, not a fish. After the Second World War,…
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The Fish That Starts Life Male
· 12.3 mi
The town of Snook wasn't named for the fish, but the fish is worth knowing. The common snook is a silver Gulf Coast game fish with a jutting lower jaw and a dark stripe down its side, and in Florida it's one of the most…
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The Bluejay Isn't Blue
· 12.3 mi
The Snook Bluejays are named for a bird that isn't really blue. A blue jay has no blue pigment at all. Inside its feathers is a sponge of keratin full of tiny air pockets, and that structure throws blue light back at…