Name: Smithville, Texas
Address: Smithville, TX

When the Katy Chose Smithville RoadyGoat

Everything about modern Smithville traces back to one corporate decision. When the Bastrop and Taylor Railway laid track two miles west of the old river town around 1887, the seventeen families of Smithville simply picked up and moved to meet it. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas line, the Katy, absorbed the railroad in 1891, and in 1894 it made the move that changed everything: it located its central shops here. The population doubled almost overnight, the town incorporated in March 1895, and for nearly fifty years Smithville was the largest town in Bastrop County. By 1909 it was headquarters for three divisions of the Katy, with a population around 3,500, a roundhouse, and even a fine YMCA building for the rail crews. The saying went that if you met somebody from Smithville, it was a safe bet they worked for the railroad. Cotton rolled out by the boxcar, and a sleepy ferry crossing became a working rail city. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Union Pacific Train Town.)

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Smitty, the World's Biggest Gingerbread Man RoadyGoat

On December 2, 2006, at the 16th annual Festival of Lights, Smithville baked something genuinely record-breaking: the world's largest gingerbread man. The cookie, later named Smitty in a public contest, stretched 20 feet from head to toe and tipped the scales at 1,308 pounds. It took roughly 750 pounds of flour, 49 gallons of molasses, and 72 dozen eggs, all separated by hand. There was no oven big enough, so the crew baked it over a dump-truck load of charcoal and then hoisted it with a crane to a 65-degree angle to satisfy Guinness World Records, which officially certified the feat in 2008. IKEA in Norway baked a bigger one in 2009, so Smithville lost the world title, but it still claims the largest in the United States. The town retired the giant cookie sheet, painted it to look like the frosted original, and turned it into a roadside monument dedicated in December 2008, standing today near the chamber visitor center and Railroad Park. (Source: Smithville Area Chamber of Commerce; Texas Highways.)

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The Slowed-Down Sound Started Here RoadyGoat

One of the most influential figures in Southern hip-hop was born right here in Smithville. Robert Earl Davis Jr., known to the world as DJ Screw, came into the world on July 20, 1971, before his family moved to Houston while he was still young. In Houston he invented the chopped and screwed technique, slowing records down to a syrupy, half-speed crawl and chopping in stutters and rewinds, a sound that became the sonic signature of an entire generation of Texas rap. He recorded hundreds of mixtapes, pulled the city's south-side rappers into his Screwed Up Click, and turned a bedroom hobby into a regional movement that eventually shaped the national sound of hip-hop. Davis died in Houston in 2000 at just 29, but his style outlived him and still echoes through modern music, from chart-topping rap to the slowed-and-reverb edits all over the internet. The slow, heavy sound that defined Houston rap had its very first heartbeat in this small Bastrop County town. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Wikipedia.)

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Adams, Margaret Cage Whitley

1940

Margaret Cage Whitley Adams, western swing pioneer and bandleader, was born on January 27, 1917, in Smithville, Texas. She was the daughter of Stephen B. and Maude (Hector) Cage. After the death of her father, she moved with her mother, sister, and three brothers to Pearsall. A talented musician and vocalist, Margaret planned to study voice at Juilliard in New York but instead married local western bandleader Olan Smiley Whitley. They had two daughters. Together they played Texas swing in the San Antonio area. Smiley Whitley’s Texans were so popular, in fact, that in the late 1940s Margaret formed her own band, an all-girl group called the Texas Tomboys, to play at extra bookings. Margaret performed as the drummer. Her Texas Tomboys, along with her husband’s Texans, helped popularize western swing throughout the Southwest in the 1940s and 1950s. Her group performed at area clubs, such as the Cabaret in Bandera, and played a regular syndicated program broadcast over the Mutual Radio Network on Saturday afternoons. They also appeared on Louisiana Hayride and played the first annual San Antonio Stock Show and Rodeo and subsequent rodeos. One of the most memorable shows for the Tomboys and the Texans was the glamorous opening of the Shamrock Hilton Hotel in Houston on March 17, 1949. The event attracted more than 2,000 attendees, including many Hollywood celebrities. The Whitleys’ eldest daughter, about ten years old at the time, performed as a featured singer. The Whitleys made their life in music for twenty-six years. Margaret Cage Whitley Adams, a lifelong Methodist, died on January 10, 2008, in San Antonio. She was buried in Leakey-Floral Cemetery in Leakey, Texas.

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Smithville, TX

1827

Smithville, just off State Highway 71 and ten miles southeast of Bastrop in southeastern Bastrop County, was established by Thomas Gazeley, who in 1827 settled near the present site. Gazeley operated a store there until his death in 1853, and the community that sprang up around the store was named Smithville, after William Smith, another early settler. J. P. Jones and Frank Smith opened a store in the community in 1867, and four years later the Smithville Presbyterian Church was organized. A post office was established in 1876, and Smithville was described in May 1879 as a thriving village. With the coming of the Bastrop and Taylor Railway eight years later, the community of seventeen families moved two miles west to meet it. By 1890 Smithville had 616 residents, and its businesses included two hotels, three millineries, and a medical practice. In the 1890s the community boomed. Extension of the railroad line to Lockhart in 1892 brought more business, as did extension of the line to Houston the next year. The line was renamed the Taylor, Bastrop and Houston in October 1886, and it was merged with the Missouri, Kansas and Texas system in 1891. The biggest boost came in 1894, when the Missouri, Kansas and Texas established its central shops in Smithville. The population quickly doubled, and the town was incorporated in March 1895. In 1896 it had an estimated 2,500 residents, Methodist, Baptist, Presbyterian, and Catholic churches, two hotels, and numerous other businesses, including four physicians' offices. In 1900 Smithville had a population of 2,577, which was 10 percent of the Bastrop County population. A 1909 newspaper account described Smithville, headquarters for three divisions of the Missouri, Kansas and Texas line, as having a population of 3,500 and railroad shops, a roundhouse, and "a fine Y.M.C.A. building." At that time it had a bank (established in 1907), and the Smithville Times had already been publishing for fifteen years. The population level through the early 1900s hovered between 3,000 and 4,000. It peaked in the mid-1940s at an estimated 4,200. Though railroad jobs were beginning to disappear, in 1949 the railroad still employed several hundred workers in Smithville. The town at this time had a dentist, two lawyers, three doctors, and six ministers and priests. By 1962 the population had dropped below 3,000, but it soon rose again. In the mid-1970s the town had a new library, a city hall, and a storm drainage system and received a statewide award for the best United States Bicentennial program. By 1984 the Smithville Times was still being published, and the town was a manufacturing and trading center with more than seventy rated businesses and an estimated population of 3,470. Local products included cedar cabins, fencing, furniture, and ship doors and components. Smithville also remained a center for farming and livestock raising. It was the site of an annual three-day festival, the Smithville Jamboree. In 1990 its population was 3,196. By 2000 the population had reached 3,901.

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Smithville

1691

In 1691 missionaries on the expedition of Don Domingo Teran de Los Rios sighted a lagoon which the Indians called Nenocadda. The lagoon, known today as Shipp's Lake, is on the southern edge of present Smithville. Frederick W. Grasmeyer operated a ferry here on the Colorado River in 1836. Steamboats plied the river from 1845 to about 1865. The village of "Old Smithville" was laid out on 640 acres of land granted to Thomas J. Gazley and Lewis Lomas. The town was located along the Colorado River in the northeast section of present Smithville. There were mercantile stores, dry good shops, and a Masonic lodge. In 1876 the first post office was established with John Pride Jones as postmaster. The Taylor, Bastrop & Houston Railroad, later a part of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas system, arrived in 1887, and the town relocated along the tracks. The legend is that a coin was tossed to decide if the name would be changed to Burlesonville for Murray Burleson, who gave land for the railroad depot. The coin toss resulted in "Smithville" being retained as the name, apparently in honor of pioneer settler William Smith. The town was incorporated in 1895 and T. C. Collins served as the first mayor. (1979) Incise in base: Marker Sponsor: Smithville Chamber of Commerce 1977-78

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Henry Mordorff

1836

A San Jacinto veteran. Born 1817. Died March 20, 1870. Erected by the State of Texas 1936

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Leshikar House

1900

This historic house was built for B.T. Smith in 1900 by Virgil Sullivan Rabb Jr. (1870-1943), one of the premier builders in the area. The home was designed in the Folk Victorian architectural style which features decorative detailing on the structure's eaves, brackets and crowns. Born in Austin County to Czech immigrants, Joseph Charles "JC” Leshikar (1870-1938) married Frantiska "Fannie” Langer (1874-1962) in 1893. Leshikar purchased his first business, the Place Saloon, in Smithville in 1894 when he was 24 years old. He expanded his business here to include land, oil and gas, and became director of the First State Bank of Smithville. The Leshikars raised their family in this home from 1903 to 1976 and are buried in Oak Hill Cemetery. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2018

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Steel, Harry Van, Sr.

1919

Harry Van Steel, Sr., officer in the Thirty-sixth United States Infantry Division and businessman, was born on August 22, 1900, in Smithville, Texas, to Van Archibald Steel and Linnie (Estes) Steel. His mother died in 1901, and his father, a locomotive engineer, married Madie Braun in 1905. By 1910 the family lived in Temple, Texas, but Van Steel died from complications of nephritis (inflammation of the kidneys) in 1914. After his father passed, Harry Steel attended Temple High School and then worked as a clerk. In 1918 he was living at the YMCA in Waco and worked as a batteryman for Central Electric Company. Steel married Dorothy Jeannette Leonard about 1922. The couple had two sons-Harry Jr. and John Leonard. Census records going back to 1930 list his residential home as San Antonio. Harry V. Steel enlisted in the United States Marine Corps after World War I and served from April 18, 1919, through July 13, 1920. He then immediately enrolled as a midshipman at the United States Naval Academy and graduated on November 4, 1921. Steel was commissioned in the Officers' Reserve Corps of the Quartermasters' Corps as a second lieutenant on December 1, 1922, to July 23, 1928, and progressed through the ranks of the Special Troops of the Thirty-sixth Division-as second lieutenant of infantry on December 6, 1927; then to first lieutenant on November 26, 1929; captain on June 25, 1932; and major on January 27, 1936, when he commanded Headquarters Company of the Seventy-first Infantry Brigade, stationed at San Antonio. After graduating from the Command and General Staff School's National Guard Officer's Course in 1938, Steel was promoted to lieutenant colonel of the National Guard of the United States on November 25, 1940, and tasked with the charge of training and military intelligence of the Thirty-sixth Division on the staff of Maj. Gen. Claude V. Birkhead . Steel was soon placed on special duty with division headquarters as acting G-4 at Camp Bowie near Brownwood. He was later promoted to colonel and served with the Thirty-sixth Division until 1943. As Colonel Steel prepared for the entry of the United States into World War II , his family accompanied him to Brownwood, Texas; Louisiana; Florida; and Massachusetts. Steel was director of G-4 (supply) on the staff of Maj. Gen. Fred Walker . The Thirty-sixth Division took part in the Allied campaign in Italy, but after the invasion, Steel came down with an illness and was evacuated from Italy. He was awarded the Legion of Merit and the Order of the Crown of Italy for outstanding service in organizing and directing supply of the Thirty-sixth Division during and after the landing at Salerno, Italy. The former award was presented by Brig. Gen. James A. Bethea at the U.S. Army Hospital, McCloskey General Hospital, at Temple, Texas, where Steel was a patient. In 1947 Steel was made a coordinator in the veterans' training program, which placed 1,353 veterans in trade training and also placed them for part-time work. His official retirement date from all military service was January 9, 1960. In Steel's civilian life, he maintained a longtime construction business that he started in the 1920s in San Antonio. The enterprise later became the family business of H. V. Steel and Sons, working in real estate and construction as general contractors. In San Antonio, Steel was an active member of St. George Episcopal Church and served as Worshipful Master at Victory Masonic Lodge No. 1160 in 1935. He was a member of San Antonio Chapter No. 3 of the Order of the Eastern Star, San Antonio Commandery No. 7 in the Knights Templar, and the Associated General Contractors of America. Harry V. Steel, Sr., died on his ranch outside of Boerne, Texas, on February 3, 1965, and was buried with full military honors in the Boerne City Cemetery.

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Smithville, Texas

Music in Smithville

Songs About Smithville

Artists From Smithville

Rivers & Roads in Song near Smithville

History of Smithville

When the Katy Chose Smithville RoadyGoat

Smitty, the World's Biggest Gingerbread Man RoadyGoat

The Slowed-Down Sound Started Here RoadyGoat

Adams, Margaret Cage Whitley

Smithville, TX

Smithville

Henry Mordorff

Leshikar House

Steel, Harry Van, Sr.

Things to Do in Smithville

Everything Near Smithville