Navasota, Texas

Everything Navasota is known for

12 songs mention this city 3 artists from here

Navasota, Texas, located in the Brazos Valley, has a notable musical identity, particularly recognized as the "Blues Capital of Texas". This designation honors Navasota native Mance Lipscomb, an influential blues singer, guitarist, and songster. His song "Tom Moore's Farm" is among seven songs in our collection that mention Navasota. Another artist from Navasota is Rama Don, a gospel artist. The city's musical heritage is a significant part of its cultural landscape.

Music in Navasota

Songs About Navasota

The Eyes of the Ranger
Tirk Wilder
90%
"The eyes of a Ranger are upon you"
Tom Moore's Farm
Mance Lipscomb
85%
navasota
jesse dayton
80%
#Navasota
Rama Don
80%
Navasota
Will Quinlan & The Diviners
80%
Count My Blessings
Ray Wylie Hubbard
50%
"Go to Navasota after I'm done dying"
Tim Moore's Farm
Lightnin' Hopkins
50%
Flower Garden Blues
Arnett Cobb
30%
Flying Home
Illinois Jacquet
26%
232
Delaney Ann
22%
"But not out in Grimes"
Men Are Getting Scarce
Joe Tex
22%
"She reminds me of them folks up in Navisoda, Texas"
I’ve Been Everywhere...In Texas
Brian Burns
2%
"Navasota"

Artists From Navasota

M
Mance Lipscomb
blues
J
Julia Hatfield
country
R
Rama Don
gospel

Rivers & Roads in Song near Navasota

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

Brazos River 42 songs Kickapoo Creek 4 songs Interstate 45 8 songs US Route 90 9 songs Interstate 10 36 songs

Musical Heritage

The Dew Drop Inn and the True Vine RoadyGoat

Alvin Ailey, the choreographer whose dance Revelations became one of the most performed modern dance works in the world, spent part of his boyhood right here. He was born in Rogers in nineteen thirty one, and when he was about six his teenage mother moved them to Navasota. They made their living picking cotton, taking in laundry and cleaning houses. Two places stayed with him. One was True Vine Baptist Church, where his mother sang in the choir. The other was the Dew Drop Inn, a Black dance hall, where, by several accounts, the boy peeked through the windows on Saturday nights while the grown ups danced to the blues. Texas Monthly wrote that the blues of Navasota's nightclubs and the spirituals of its Baptist churches went into his Blues Suite and into Revelations. He left for Los Angeles when he was eleven or twelve. Years later, when his company danced in Leningrad, the audience gave them a twenty three minute ovation.

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Joe Tex Came Home RoadyGoat

Joe Tex was born Joseph Arrington Junior in Rogers, Texas. He won amateur night at the Apollo four times, and he pioneered talking over the groove on soul records, with hits like Hold What You've Got, Skinny Legs and All, and I Gotcha, which went platinum. In nineteen sixty eight he joined the Nation of Islam as Yusef Hazziez, and for a few years he left show business for the ministry. He came back in nineteen seventy seven with I Ain't Gonna Bump No More. Then he pulled back to Navasota. He had a heart attack at home here and died in August of nineteen eighty two. Instead of flowers, his family asked for donations to a Joe Tex scholarship fund. He's buried in a cemetery just outside town.

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Stubb Was Born in Navasota RoadyGoat

Christopher Stubblefield, the barbecue man everybody called Stubb, was born in Navasota in March of nineteen thirty one, a preacher's son. His family moved to Lubbock when he was a boy. In Korea he was a gunner in an all Black artillery unit and was wounded twice. In nineteen sixty eight he opened Stubb's Bar-B-Q in Lubbock, under a sign that said there will be no bad talk or loud talk in this place. A guitar player built him a stage, and Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock and Terry Allen played there for tips. Muddy Waters, Johnny Cash and Willie Nelson came through. He moved to Austin in the nineteen eighties, and on the day he died, in May of nineteen ninety five, his partners bought the building on Red River Street that became Stubb's. His sauce is sold all over the country.

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History of Navasota

Mance Lipscomb, the Navasota Songster RoadyGoat

Navasota is known as the ‘Blues Capital of Texas’ because of one man: Mance Lipscomb. But to call him just a bluesman is to miss the point. For over 60 years, Mance was a tenant farmer, living and working the land right here in the Brazos Valley. Music was just what he did at night and at local gatherings. He was a ‘songster,’ a walking library of American music, playing everything from blues and spirituals to popular dance tunes. He wasn't ‘discovered’ until 1960, when musicologists found him living in a small house without electricity. He was 65 years old. Overnight, he became a star of the folk music revival, playing for huge crowds at festivals and recording albums. Yet he always returned home to Navasota. As you pass through, imagine this humble farmer who carried the soul of Texas music and, late in life, shared it with the world.

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The Marshal Who Tamed Navasota, Then Hunted Bonnie and Clyde RoadyGoat

1908

Before he was a legend, Frank Hamer was Navasota's city marshal. He took the job in December 1908 at age 24, leaving the Texas Rangers for a town so violent that gunfights on the main street were common. Over three years he restored order, and by the time he resigned in 1911, the shooting had largely stopped. Hamer went on to a storied career as a Ranger and lawman. In 1934, as a special investigator for the Texas prison system, he led the posse that tracked down outlaws Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow. After a months-long chase, his men ambushed and killed the pair near Gibsland, Louisiana, on May 23, 1934. Navasota honors its former marshal with a life-sized bronze statue on the City Hall grounds, sculpted by Russell Cushman and dedicated in 2013.

The Town the Railroad Built Watched a President Roll Through It RoadyGoat

Union Pacific put a title on this town in 2012 and called it Train Town USA, and it was earned. Three separate railroads came through here: the Houston and Texas Central in September of 1859, the Santa Fe in 1885, the International-Great Northern in 1900. The tracks are the entire reason Navasota is Navasota. Then on the sixth of December, 2018, those tracks carried a president. Union Pacific had painted a locomotive in the blue and white of the Air Force One that George H. W. Bush flew in, and numbered it 4141 for the forty-first president. That engine pulled his funeral train about seventy miles to College Station, and it came right through this town. It was the first presidential funeral train in this country in nearly half a century. They had fitted the car with clear panels so people standing trackside could see the flag-draped casket go past. Thousands of them lined the route. It was cold and wet and not a good day to stand outside, and they stood outside. And some of them laid coins down on the rails. Four hundred twenty thousand pounds of locomotive came through and flattened them, and those people walked home holding a piece of smashed metal they will keep for the rest of their lives. The railroad made this town. Then one day it brought a president through the middle of it, and the whole town came out to the tracks that built it.

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La Salle Assassination Site

1687

Bronze statue of René-Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, erected 1930 in Navasota. Marks the approximate area where he was assassinated by his own men in March 1687 during the failed Fort Saint Louis expedition.

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La Bahia Trail

1690

Originally an Indian trail through Southern Texas and Louisiana; known to Spanish explorers as early as 1690, when the De Leon Expedition passed this site on the way from Mexico to East Texas. With 115 men, 721 horses, 82 loads of flour, and other supplies, Alonso de Leon, Governor of Coahuila, and Father Massanet, a Franciscan priest, entered the wilds of Texas. The purpose of the expedition was to discourage French encroachment from the north, as well as to explore, colonize, and Christianize the Indians. They followed the rugged trail from the present town of Refugio to Goliad and continued northeast to Navasota, probably following Cedar Creek through this town. Then they journeyed north until reaching the Neches River, where (near present Weches) they founded the Mission of San Francisco de Los Tejas. The church was called after the Tejas, or "Friendly" Indians, whose name was eventually given to the entire state. Although de Leon's party went no farther on the western section of the trail, known as Atascosito Road, the eastern section extended into Louisiana. In nineteenth century, the route gained importance as a cattle trail, the Opelousas Road, that moved Texas herds to market in the north and east.

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Grimes, Jesse

1826

Jesse Grimes, judge and signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence , son of Sampson and Bethsheba (Winder) Grimes, was born in what is now Duplin County, North Carolina, on February 6, 1788. In 1817 he moved to Washington County, Alabama. His first wife, Martha (Smith), died in 1824; they had nine children. In 1826 he married Mrs. Rosanna Ward Britton; they became the parents of six children. Grimes moved to Texas in 1826 and settled temporarily in Stephen F. Austin 's second colony on the San Jacinto River in what is now Harris County; in the fall of 1827 he settled on Grimes Prairie, now in Grimes County. On March 21, 1829, he was elected first lieutenant of the First Company, Battalion of Austin. He was elected síndico procurador of the Viesca precinct in December 1830 and in December 1831 was elected a regidor of the ayuntamiento . On October 5, 1832, he was put on a subcommittee of safety and vigilance for the Viesca District and on October 6 was appointed treasurer of the district. He represented Washington Municipality in the Consultation and on November 14, 1835, was elected a member of the General Council of the provisional government . Grimes was one of the four representatives from Washington Municipality to the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos and there signed the Declaration of Independence. On June 3, 1836, he enrolled a company of volunteers for three months' service in the Texas army. He represented Washington County in the Senate of the First Congress of the Republic of Texas from October 3, 1836, to September 25, 1837. From November 1, 1841, to December 8, 1843, he represented Montgomery County in the Sixth and Seventh congresses. He filled out Robert M. Williamson 's unexpired term in the Eighth Congress, representing Washington, Montgomery, and Brazos counties, and was elected to the Ninth Congress, which ended on June 28, 1845. After annexation he was a member of the Senate of the First, Second, Third, and Fourth legislatures. Grimes County was probably named for him. Grimes died on March 15, 1866, and was buried in the John McGinty cemetery, ten miles east of Navasota. In 1929 his remains and those of his second wife were reinterred in the State Cemetery .

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Hamer, Francis Augustus

1906

Francis Augustus Hamer, a prominent Texas Ranger, was born in Fairview, Texas, on March 17, 1884, to Franklin Augustus Hamer and Lou Emma (Francis) Hamer. Known commonly as Frank or Pancho, he spent his early childhood on the Welch Ranch in San Saba County. In 1894 the family moved to Oxford in Llano County where Hamer worked at his father's blacksmith shop. He attended a rural school in Oxford through approximately the sixth grade. He also personally trained himself to excel in horsemanship and marksmanship. In 1901 Hamer and his brother, Harrison Hamer, found work as wranglers on Green Berry Ketchum, Jr.'s ranch in Pecos County near Sheffield. Ketchum was a brother of outlaw Tom "Black Jack" Ketchum ( see KETCHUM BOYS ). In 1905 Sheriff Dudley S. Barker recommended that Hamer, who was working as a cowboy on the Carr Ranch between Sheffield and Fort Stockton, join the Texas Rangers after he captured a horse thief. On April 21, 1906, Hamer enlisted as a private in the Texas Rangers in Capt. John H. Rogers 's Company C. Working primarily along the South Texas border, Hamer became known as an expert shot and was involved in murder investigations, gambling arrests, and was part of Ranger details assigned to protect and transport prisoners, often in the midst of racially-charged environments. He left the Rangers on November 30, 1908, to become city marshal of the lawless town of Navasota, Texas. By the time Hamer resigned as marshall on April 21, 1911, he had restored a semblance of order in the town, in large part by enforcing his authority over the racist White Man's Union that had run the town's politics and law. While working in Navasota, Frank Hamer married Mollie Bobadillo Cameron on March 19, 1911, in Hempstead, Texas. They were divorced by early 1915. From 1911 to 1915 Hamer worked as a special officer in Houston. He rejoined the Rangers on March 29, 1915, and initially investigated livestock thefts in Kimble County but eventually was stationed along the Rio Grande and patrolled the border. He resigned on November 8, 1915, and became a brand inspector for the Cattle Raisers' Association of Texas ( see TEXAS AND SOUTHWESTERN CATTLE RAISERS ASSOCIATION ) but obtained a "Special Ranger" warrant and was attached to Company C. Hamer married Ida Gladys Johnson on May 12, 1917. Johnson had two daughters from a previous marriage, and Hamer adopted them. Hamer and his wife later had two sons of their own. On October 1, 1918, he enlisted in Company F in Brownsville and fought drug smuggling; he was soon promoted to sergeant. The ongoing Mexican Revolution fueled a period of domestic turmoil in Mexico and anti-Mexican sentiment in the United States. In 1919 State Representative José Tomás Canales brought before the Joint Committee of the Senate and the House in the Investigation of the Texas State Ranger Force nineteen charges against the Texas Rangers for racial violence. Hamer, in December 1918 in San Benito, had previously confronted and threatened Canales over the investigation. Weeks later Canales encountered him in Austin. Canales accused Hamer of stalking him, commenting that "his presence was made known to me," and submitted evidence of these threats in the proceedings records. Later in the proceedings, William W. Sterling , who later was made a captain in the Rangers, defended Hamer's record but conceded that Hamer usually meant the threats he made. Still with Company F, Hamer investigated illegal arms smuggling along the Rio Grande in late 1918 to early 1919. In one incident, he reportedly refused to "turn a blind eye" as instructed by Capt. William Martin Hanson, regarding a shipment from Houston reportedly going to Pancho Villa , and instead met with Tamaulipas police commander Lt. Col. Manual Bernea to work with Mexican soldiers along the border regarding smugglers. At this time Hamer was placed on detached duty; his warrant of authority ended on June 19, 1919. He was later able to reenlist, in Company B, on November 25,

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Lipscomb, Mance

1895

Mance Lipscomb, guitarist and songster, was born Bowdie Glenn Lipscomb, in the Brazos bottoms near Navasota, Texas, on April 9, 1895. He was the son of Charles and Jane Lipscomb. Mance lived in the Brazos valley most of his life as a tenant farmer. His father was an Alabama slave who acquired the surname Lipscomb when he was sold to a Texas family of that name. Lipscomb dropped his given name and named himself Mance when a friend, an old man called Emancipation, died. Lipscomb and Elnora, his wife of sixty-three years, had one son, Mance Jr., three adopted children, and twenty-four grandchildren. Lipscomb represented one of the last remnants of the nineteenth-century songster tradition, which predated the development of the blues . Though songsters might incorporate blues into their repertoires, as did Lipscomb, they performed a wide variety of material in diverse styles, much of it common to both Black and White traditions in the South, including ballads, rags, dance pieces (breakdowns, waltzes, one and two steps, slow drags, reels, ballin' the jack, the buzzard lope, hop scop, buck and wing, heel and toe polka), and popular, sacred, and secular songs. Lipscomb himself insisted that he was a songster, not a guitarist or "blues singer," since he played "all kinds of music." His eclectic repertoire has been reported to have contained 350 pieces spanning two centuries. (He likewise took exception when he was labeled a "sharecropper" instead of a "farmer.") Lipscomb was born into a musical family and began playing at an early age. His father was a fiddler, his uncle played the banjo, and his brothers were guitarists. His mother bought him a guitar when he was eleven, and he was soon accompanying his father, and later entertaining alone, at suppers and Saturday night dances. Although he had some contact with such early recording artists as fellow Texans Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Willie Johnson and early country star Jimmie Rodgers , he did not make recordings until his "discovery" by Whites during the folk-song revival of the 1960s. Between 1905 and 1956 he farmed as a tenant for a series of landlords in and around Grimes County, including the notorious Tom Moore, subject of a local ballad. Lipscomb left Moore's employ abruptly and went into hiding after he struck a foreman for abusing his mother and wife. His rendition of "Tom Moore's Farm" was taped at his first session in 1960 but released anonymously (Arhoolie LP 1017, Texas Blues, Volume 2 ), presumably to protect the singer. Between 1956 and 1958 Lipscomb lived in Houston, working for a lumber company during the day and playing at night in bars where he vied for audiences with Texas blues great Lightnin' Hopkins , whom Lipscomb had first met in Galveston in 1938. With compensation from an on-the-job accident, he returned to Navasota and was finally able to buy some land and build a house of his own. He was working as foreman of a highway-mowing crew in Grimes County when blues researchers Chris Strachwitz of Arhoolie Records and Mack McCormick of Houston found and recorded him in 1960. Lipscomb's encounter with Strachwitz and McCormick marked the beginning of over a decade of involvement in the folk-song revival, during which he won wide acclaim and emulation from young White audiences and performers for his virtuosity as a guitarist and the breadth of his repertoire. Admirers enjoyed his lengthy reminiscences and eloquent observations regarding music and life, many of which are contained in taped and written materials in the Lipscomb-Alyn Collection in the archives and manuscripts section of the Dolph Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas at Austin. He made numerous recordings and appeared at such festivals as the Berkeley Folk Festival of 1961, where he played before a crowd of more than 40,000. In clubs Lipscomb often shared the bill with young revivalists or rock bands. He was also the subject of a film, A Well-Spent Life (1970), made by Le

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Sexing Technologies (Navasota)

1996

World's largest producer of sex-sorted bovine semen, headquartered at 22575 State Highway 6 S, Navasota. Founded 1996 by Juan Moreno, commercializing USDA flow-cytometry sperm sorting.

Local Knowledge → · 4.2 mi away

Things to Do in Navasota

quirky 0.1 mi away
The Blues Capital of Texas

Mance Lipscomb picked cotton all week and picked guitar all weekend on the farms outside Navasota for decades before anyone beyond Grimes County knew his name.…
historical 0.1 mi away
The Explorer Who Died Lost

On March 19 1687 the French explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier Sieur de La Salle was walking through the bottomlands near the Navasota River when one of his own men…
historical 23.9 mi away
The Night Federal Troops Burned Brenham

In 1866 Union soldiers occupying Brenham during Reconstruction clashed with local residents and set fire to an entire city block. The flames consumed…
quirky 24.0 mi away
The Underground City Beneath the Streets

After fires ravaged Brenham three times in a decade the town did something no other Texas city had attempted. They built twenty-seven underground cisterns…
quirky 24.1 mi away
From Cotton Gin to Ice Cream Empire

In 1907 a group of Washington County dairy farmers converted an abandoned cotton gin into a creamery and started making butter. Ice cream production began in…
historical 0.1 mi away
The Summer Everything Died

In August 1867 yellow fever swept into Navasota and the town simply collapsed. Of three thousand residents more than half fled within days leaving the sick to…
historical 0.1 mi away
The Night the Cotton Burned

In 1865 the Civil War was over but the chaos was not. A warehouse in Navasota packed with cotton bales and gunpowder exploded after Confederate veterans angry…
historical 0.1 mi away
Birthplace Next Door

Just seven miles from Navasota sits Washington-on-the-Brazos where fifty-nine delegates signed the Texas Declaration of Independence on March 2 1836. They did…

Sports in Navasota

⭐ HOMETOWN LEGENDS Class 4A · Football

Navasota Rattlers — Navasota — a college & pro athletic pipeline

3 alumni who reached major-college or pro sports

Navasota High School has a proud tradition of developing athletes who achieve at high levels beyond their time as Rattlers. The dedication and talent cultivated in Navasota have paved the way for several alumni to compete in major college and professional sports. These individuals represent the spirit of athletic pursuit that thrives within our community.

Among the notable alumni are Clay Condrey, a former Major League Baseball relief pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres. Shelton Eppler has gone on to become a professional football quarterback. Additionally, Jarvis Harrison is a former professional football offensive guard, showcasing the diverse athletic pathways taken by Navasota graduates.

Pro/D1 alumni
3
Class
4A
Key Players
  • Clay Condrey — , (born November 19, 1975) former Major League Baseball relief pitcher for the Philadelphi
  • Shelton Eppler — , professional football quarterback.
  • Jarvis Harrison — , (born December 25, 1991), former professional football offensive guard
The moment

Clay Condrey pitched as a relief pitcher for the Philadelphia Phillies and San Diego Padres.

Sources: Wikipedia · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near Navasota

500 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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