Rhome, Texas

Everything Rhome is known for

5 songs mention this city 0 artists from here

Music in Rhome

Songs About Rhome

A State Of Texas
Old 97's
55%
"Or my ride rolls into Rhome"
Stoned
Old 97's
52%
"Hitchhike to Rhome"
Halifax Ranch
Little Mazarn
43%
"Halifax Ranch"
With Crippled Wings
Lift to Experience
35%
"From Athens to London to Paris to Rhome"
Those Feat’ll Steer Ya Wrong Sometimes
Little Feat
3%
"Paul called and said, "We're on our way to Rhome""

Artists From Rhome

No artists from Rhome in the database yet.

Rivers & Roads in Song near Rhome

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

Texas State Highway 199 8 songs Interstate 35 43 songs Interstate 20 13 songs Brazos River 42 songs Trinity River 11 songs

History of Rhome

The Roswell of Texas RoadyGoat

Aurora's claim to fame is a story that's literally out of this world. On April 19, 1897, the Dallas Morning News reported that a mysterious airship had crashed two days earlier on the property of a local judge, J.S. Proctor. The article, written by a local resident, claimed the craft hit a windmill and exploded. The pilot's body was recovered from the debris and described as 'not of this world' and possibly 'a native of the planet Mars.' The story concludes that the townspeople gave the alien a 'Christian burial' in the Aurora Cemetery. Today, the story is widely considered a clever hoax, perhaps an attempt to generate publicity for a town that was dying after an epidemic and being bypassed by the railroad. Still, the legend persists, earning Aurora the nickname 'The Roswell of Texas' and making its quiet cemetery a landmark for believers and the curious alike.

RoadyGoat →

Aurora alien grave legend RoadyGoat

Fifty years before anybody said the word Roswell, a little town north of Fort Worth had already buried its alien. April of 1897 — the local newspaperman, S.E. Haydon, filed a story in the Dallas Morning News. A cigar-shaped airship came in low over Aurora, clipped a judge's windmill, and came apart. The pilot didn't survive. And what was left of him, Haydon wrote, showed he was no inhabitant of this world. They gave him a Christian burial in the town cemetery. Here's the turn. Years later, an eighty-six-year-old woman who was there, Etta Pegues, said Haydon made the whole thing up — a joke, to draw eyes to a town the railroad had passed by, a town that was dying. The grave's unmarked now. The state's own marker calls it exactly what it is: a legend. But nobody's ever dug to be sure.

RoadyGoat →

Engineering a Ghost Town RoadyGoat

Aurora died in two blows, and the first one wasn't the railroad. Late in 1888 spotted fever broke out here, and by 1889 the fear of it had emptied a town that had counted somewhere between 750 and 3,000 people, with two schools, two cotton gins, two hotels, and fifteen businesses. The boll weevil was working on the cotton crop at the same time. Then came the second blow, and that one was pure arithmetic. The Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad had planned to lay track through Aurora, and about two years later it abandoned the plan. Railroad engineering isn't about sentiment; it's grades and right-of-way costs and the flattest, straightest ground a surveyor can find. The line went elsewhere, and most of the few people still hanging on packed up and moved two miles southeast to Rhome, the new site of a railroad stop. A line on a map finished what the fever started. Aurora never quite vanished, though — it's a growing little town again today, and it has a much stranger story to tell about April of 1897.

RoadyGoat →

Aurora UFO Crash Site

1897

In April 1897, an alleged airship crashed in the small Wise County town of Aurora, with claims of an alien pilot buried in the local cemetery, fifty years before Roswell.

Aurora Cemetery

1860

The oldest known graves here, dating from as early as the 1860's, are those of the Randall and Rowlett families. Finis Dudley Beauchamp (1825-1893), a Confederate veteran from Mississippi, donated the 3-acre site to the newly formed Aurora Lodge No. 479, A.F. & A.M., in 1877. For many years, this community burial ground was known as Masonic Cemetery. Beauchamp, his wife Caroline (1829-1915), and others in their family are buried here. An epidemic which struck the village in 1891 added hundreds of graves to the plot. Called "spotted fever" by the settlers, the disease is now though to have been a form of meningitis. Located in Aurora Cemetery is the gravestone of the infant Nellie Burris (1891-1893) with its often-quoted epitaph: "As I was so soon done, I don't know why I was begun." This site is also well known because of the legend that a spaceship crashed nearby in 1897 and the pilot, killed in the crash, was buried here. Struck by epidemic and crop failure and bypassed by the railroad, the original town of Aurora almost disappeared, but the cemetery remains in use with over 800 graves. Veterans of the Civil War, World Wars I and II, and the Korean and Vietnam conflicts are interred here.

Historical Marker →

Aurora, TX (Wise County)

1897

Aurora is on State Highway 114 ten miles southeast of Decatur in southeastern Wise County. The site is on a gentle rise and is surrounded by mesquite and live oak trees. Settlement began there in the late 1850s. Impressed by the beauty of the place, William O. Stanfield suggested Aurora for the name of the community. For the first twenty years the population grew rapidly, and the town became a trading center for county farmers. A post office was opened in 1873, and the town was incorporated on August 21, 1882. By the mid-1880s Aurora had two schools, two cotton gins, two hotels, fifteen businesses, and a population variously estimated at between 750 and 3,000. An outbreak of spotted fever began during the latter part of 1888, and by 1889 fear of the epidemic had caused a mass exodus from the town. Two years later, when the Fort Worth and Denver City Railroad abandoned its plan to lay tracks through Aurora, most of the few remaining inhabitants moved to Rhome, two miles to the southeast, the new site of a railroad stop. Ironically, as its decline continued, the town became the focus of the state's attention. On April 19, 1897, S. E. Haydon, an Aurora cotton buyer, wrote a story in the Dallas Morning News describing the crash of a mysterious airship just outside of town. Hayden's fictional article was apparently an attempt to bring attention to the community, but it caused a sensation because stories were already current of unidentified flying objects near Fort Worth. Hayden's tale, however, failed to revive Aurora. In 1901 postal service was discontinued. The construction of State Highway 114 through Aurora in 1939 probably saved the community from extinction. In the early 1970s Aurora underwent a rebirth as the town became a bedroom community of Fort Worth. In 1986 it had an estimated 376 residents. In 1990 the population was 623, and in 2000 it was 853.

Tsha Handbook →

Rhome, TX

1858

Rhome is on U.S. Highway 287/81 twelve miles southeast of Decatur in southeastern Wise County. A community known as Prairie Point, located at the crossroads of two stagecoach lines near the site of present Rhome, was established in the late 1850s by a group of Missourians. One of these new settlers, Samuel Sheets, owned land near the crossroads and in 1858 began to lay out and sell town lots. In the same year a post office opened, and by the early 1860s Prairie Point, with a hotel, a school, and several businesses, was the second largest settlement in Wise County. During the Civil War , however, the area, defended only by a brigade of old men and boys, was left vulnerable to attacks by Indians and bandits. Also, several prominent citizens and former citizens of Prairie Point, among them the community's former physician, Dr. Alfred McCarty, were involved in the Peace Party Conspiracy of 1862 ( see GREAT HANGING AT GAINESVILLE ). After several midnight arrests and a trial in Decatur, five residents were hanged. By 1863 Prairie Point was virtually deserted. By 1882 the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway had laid tracks nearby, and by 1883 the new settlement was named Rhome, in honor of Col. Byron Crandall Rhome, a prominent local rancher who was credited with bringing the first Hereford cattle to Wise County. The Rhome post office was established in 1883, and by the early 1890s the town had 175 residents, a school, a church, and two flour mills. One of these mills was the first roller mill built in the county, and possibly the first in Texas. In operation by 1898, this more technologically sophisticated mill used rollers instead of stone burrs to grind wheat into flour. During the 1930s the mill, then owned by L. W. Renshaw, was paid $5,000 by General Mills for the rights to a flour brand name that Renshaw had been using for years-Gold Medal. In 1939 Highway 81 was built through Rhome, and by 1942 the town was incorporated. Between 1925 and 1980 its population level fluctuated between 400 and 600. By 1988 Rhome, by then a residential community for commuters to Fort Worth, had 634 residents served by fifteen businesses. In 1990 its population was 605. The population dropped to 551 in 2000.

Tsha Handbook →

Bledsoe, George Lawton

1834

Georgia native George Lawton Bledsoe (b. 1805), a carpenter and cotton gin builder, came to Texas in 1834. A veteran of the Texas Revolution and the Battle of San Jacinto, he received a pension for his military service and patented land grants in Brazoria, Cooke, Jack, Fannin, and Wise counties. He was married to the former Ellen Bowdre (d. 1850) and had five children. Bledsoe is buried here along with his daughter Georgia and a brother-in-law, Preston E. Bowdre. Ellen Bledsoe and the couple's other four children are buried in Fannin County, probably in Bledsoe Cemetery near Dial.

Historical Marker →

Boyd, TX (Wise County)

1893

Boyd is on State Highway 114 seven miles south of Decatur in southern Wise County. In the early 1890s farmers settled at the site, in the curve of the North Fork of the Trinity River. The community was originally referred to as Greasy Bend because the area was used to fatten hogs. After the Rock Island line reached the town in 1893, the settlement was renamed Parkhurst in honor of a railroad official. The community received a post office branch in September 1893. Sometime later, railroad officials complained that Parkhurst might become confused with Park Springs, a town just down the line, and Parkhurst citizens selected the name Boyd for their town, in honor of H. S. Boyd, another railroad executive. The Boyd community incorporated in 1895 and soon became a retail point for area farmers. Until the 1940s cotton and livestock were the area's principal agricultural products; afterward Boyd became a center for melons. In the late 1950s the town began to serve as a bedroom community for citizens working in Fort Worth. Its population increased from 496 to 525 between 1940 and 1960 and grew steadily thereafter. In 1990 Boyd reported a population of 1,041 and forty-five businesses; in 2000 the community had 1,099 inhabitants and 152 businesses.

Tsha Handbook → · 4.1 mi away

Things to Do in Rhome

quirky 9.7 mi away
Chewbacca's Grave — May the 4th

May the 4th be with you — and with the Wookiee. Peter Mayhew the seven-foot-three British actor who brought Chewbacca to life in every Star Wars film from 1977…
quirky 9.8 mi away
Chewbacca's Grave

The seven-foot-three British actor who played Chewbacca in every Star Wars film from 1977 to The Force Awakens is buried right here at Azleland Memorial Park.…
quirky 13.0 mi away
Springtown Dinosaur Tracks

A family went out hunting arrowheads along Walnut Creek in 2017 and found something about 110 million years older than they expected. Pressed into the creekbed…
quirky 13.1 mi away
The Azle Earthquake Swarm

Starting in November 2013 the ground beneath Azle started shaking and it did not stop for 84 days. Twenty-seven earthquakes rattled windows cracked foundations…
historical 13.1 mi away
WWII Marine Glider Base at Eagle Mountain

In 1942 the United States Marines bought 2931 acres of ranchland on Eagle Mountain Lake for a purpose that sounds almost unbelievable now — training pilots to…
historical 21.8 mi away
Billy Bob's Texas

Billy Bob's opened in 1981 in an old cattle barn in the Fort Worth Stockyards and at one hundred twenty-seven thousand square feet it is the largest honky-tonk…
historical 21.9 mi away
Fort Worth Stockyards

Daily cattle drives down the street. Honky-tonks and rodeos in the old West.
food 23.3 mi away
Joe T. Garcia's

Joe T opened his little family restaurant behind the packing plant in the Fort Worth Stockyards in 1935. There was no menu. His wife Jessie served whatever she…

Everything Near Rhome

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

Explore Rhome on the Map
All music from Texas → · Browse more cities