City of Killeen

Killeen grew as a White Protestant town, and not by accident. The Handbook says that by 1900 virtually all its 780 residents were White Protestants because the community openly discouraged Blacks and Catholics from living there. Melba Olean Davis, who came in 1947, remembered a "white man's town." The Handbook reports no Black residents in 1950, though a Herald account counts 32. By the early 1950s a Black subdivision, Marlboro Heights, existed, and in 1956 the school board voted to integrate the high school.

What the plaque says

City of Killeen When the tracks of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad were extended from Temple to Lampasas in the early 1880s, a switching station was installed near the midway point. The settlement that grew up around the site became the town of Killeen, named for Frank P. Killeen, a native of Ireland and a senior official of the rail company. The first train arrived on May 15, 1882, marking the beginning of the town. Many early residents of Killeen came from the nearby pioneer communities of Sugar Loaf (6 mi. N) and Palo Alto (3.5 mi.NE). Town lots were sold by the GC&SF Railroad and one of the earliest structures built was a wooden community school which opened in the fall of 1882. By the following year Killeen was the site of two gristmills and a cotton gin. The town was incorporated in 1893 and W.E. Hudson was elected to serve as the first mayor. In the early years of Killeen's development, the town was primarily an agricultural center for the production of cotton, grain, wool and cattle. In 1942 it became the home of Camp Hood, now Fort Hood. The federal installation's growth as a major military base has had a dramatic impact on the city, making it one of the fastest growing towns in Texas. (1982)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mother Neff State Park — 21 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 22 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.

More markers nearby

• John Blackburn Log House — 0.5 mi
• Santa Fe Depot — 0.8 mi
• Oveta Culp Hobby and the Women's Army Corps — 1.1 mi
• Killeen Herald — 1.3 mi