City of Bartlett

Bartlett began with a survey. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railway surveyed its right-of-way here in 1881, and town lots were offered that year. By 1884 the town had about 300 people, a gin, a hotel, four churches and a school. When it incorporated in 1890 it had a bank, two weekly newspapers, a Masonic lodge and a waterworks. In 1909 investors chartered the Bartlett-Florence Railway, later the Bartlett Western, building west from here. By 1914 Bartlett reached its peak of about 2,200 people, with three banks and three cotton gins.

What the plaque says

City of Bartlett Settlers began moving to this area in the 1830s, when Texas was a republic, but the town of Bartlett was not established until the 1870s. The founders were J. Edward Pietzsch and Capt. John T. Bartlett, for whom the community was named. In 1882 the railroad was extended to Bartlett, making the city a major regional cotton center. Incorporated in 1890, the city is located on the Williamson-Bell county line, which divides several homes and commercial buildings. Today Bartlett continues to serve as a trade center for the surrounding agricultural district. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Williamson County Courthouse — 18 mi
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• Inner Space Cavern — 20 mi
  A Georgetown cave found in 1963 when highway engineers drilled test holes, holding Pleistocene fossils and 72-degree rooms that visitors reach by an artificial tunnel.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 21 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• The Round Rock — 25 mi
  A table-shaped stone in Brushy Creek gave Round Rock its name in 1854; the Chisholm Trail crossed the creek near it, and Old Town stayed behind when the railroad pulled the town east.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church of Bartlett — steps away
• Bartlett Grammar School — steps away
• First National Bank of Bartlett — 0.2 mi
• Site of Booker T. Washington School — 0.3 mi