Elgin, Texas

Everything Elgin is known for

2 songs mention this city 3 artists from here

Music in Elgin

Songs About Elgin

Cowboys and Angels
Dustin Lynch
40%
Texas BBQ
Race Ricketts
4%
"TITLE"

Artists From Elgin

A
Austin English
country
L
Leti Garza
latin
M
Malford Milligan
r-n-b

Rivers & Roads in Song near Elgin

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

Texas Colorado River 6 songs Texas State Highway 71 2 songs Interstate 35 43 songs Blanco River 4 songs Pedernales River 6 songs

Musical Heritage

From Elgin's Classroom to Ray Charles's Band RoadyGoat

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

RoadyGoat →

History of Elgin

Why Elgin Became the Sausage Capital RoadyGoat

1882

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

Welcomed at Elgin on Alamo Day RoadyGoat

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

RoadyGoat →

The Deputy and the Man Behind the Boxes RoadyGoat

In November of eighteen eighty three, two men were murdered at Fedor, and another man was beaten, robbed and left for dead. Deputy Sheriff Isaac Heffington went looking for the killers, and in McDade, as he searched, a man stepped out from behind some boxes, said something to him, and shot him. Before he died, on the third of December, Heffington signed a statement naming the man he believed had shot him, but that man was found not guilty, and the case was never solved. The Handbook of Texas says his killing set off the vigilante hangings that ended in the McDade Christmas violence a few weeks later.

RoadyGoat →

Burleson, Mary R. B. Christian

1832

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

Tsha Handbook →

Elgin, TX

1872

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

Tsha Handbook →

Elgin - Sausage Capital of Texas

1882

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

City of Elgin Centennial, 1872-1972

1871

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

Historical Marker →

Miller - Gillum House

1910

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

Historical Marker →

McDade, TX

1875

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

Tsha Handbook → · 9.7 mi away

Things to Do in Elgin

food 21.2 mi away
Franklin Barbecue

Legendary Austin BBQ with 2-3 hour waits. Obama waited in line here.
quirky 17.3 mi away
The Con Man Who Named a Town

Bastrop's namesake Baron de Bastrop was no baron at all. He was a Dutch commoner named Philip Hendrik Nering Bogel wanted for embezzlement in the Netherlands.…
historical 17.4 mi away
The Man Who Survived His Own Scalping

In 1833 Josiah Wilbarger was scouting near Bastrop when Comanches attacked his party with arrows and bullets. They left him for dead after taking his scalp.…
quirky 18.3 mi away
The Forest That Shouldn't Exist

The Lost Pines of Bastrop are a thirteen-mile stretch of loblolly pines growing over a hundred miles west of the East Texas forests they genetically match.…
historical 19.5 mi away
The Fire That Nearly Took the Lost Pines

On September 4 2011 strong winds from a nearby tropical storm snapped trees onto power lines east of Bastrop. Three separate fires merged into the most…
historical 21.6 mi away
Texas State Capitol

The Texas Capitol in Austin is taller than the US Capitol in Washington -- three hundred and eight feet to two hundred and eighty-eight -- because Texas wanted…
historical 21.8 mi away
Antone's Nightclub

Clifford Antone was a kid from Port Arthur who loved the blues so much he opened a club on East Sixth Street in 1975 and spent the next thirty years flying…
quirky 22.1 mi away
Congress Avenue Bridge Bats

When Austin rebuilt the Congress Avenue Bridge in 1980 the new design accidentally created perfect crevices for Mexican free-tailed bats. By the mid-1990s one…
day trip
Day Trip to Elgin: 🐄 The Sausage Capital of Texas FULL EPISODE

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

Everything Near Elgin

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

Explore Elgin on the Map
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