Charles Harvey Waddell

The plaque gives Waddell's years in Austin a single clause, and the Legislative Reference Library fills them in. Born in Bentonville, Arkansas, he sat as a Democrat for House District 20, Fort Bend and Waller counties, in the 40th and 41st Legislatures, 1927 to 1931. His first session put him on the committees for common carriers, school districts, and privileges, suffrage and elections. In 1929 he chaired the Rules Committee and was vice chair of Conservation and Reclamation, with seats on highways and penitentiaries. The 1929 Legislative Manual listed his trades as telephone, cotton gin and real estate.

What the plaque says

Charles Harvey Waddell (January 18, 1888 - January 28, 1950) A native of Arkansas, Charles Harvey Waddell came to Texas with his family at an early age. He became an automobile dealer in 1910 and in 1914 formed the Fort Bend Telephone Company. He served as county tax collector from 1919 to 1922, and from 1926 to 1930 represented Waller and Fort Bend counties in the State Legislature. Through his later business interests, including three local farmers' gins, real estate development, a lumber company, and a savings and loan institution, Waddell contributed significantly to the growth and development of Rosenberg. (1990)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazos Bend State Park — 17 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site — 24 mi
  Stephen F. Austin's colonial capital on a Brazos bluff, the town of the Consultation and the first Texas newspapers, burned by its own garrison in the Runaway Scrape of 1836.
• The Menil Collection — 27 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 27 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.

More markers nearby

• Robinowitz Brothers — steps away
• Fort Bend Telephone Company — steps away
• Rosenberg Post Office — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Rosenberg — 0.2 mi