Community of Egypt

In 1848 some enterprising people in Egypt built a railroad. The Handbook of Texas says its rails were hard live oak and its cars were pulled by horses, running between Egypt and Columbus, decades before the Cane Belt line reached the town in 1901. The settlement's longer-lived institution was the mercantile that George Northington and Green Duncan built in 1881, which stocked everything from seed to caskets and held the post office until 1981. Egypt's first county election was held in a general store, and a general store was still the polling place in the 1990 primary.

What the plaque says

Community of Egypt One of most historic towns in county. Named following the drouth of 1827, when pioneers of Stephen F. Austin's colony came to this fertile region to obtain corn. They called it "Goin down into Egypt for corn", after biblical passage. Noted patriots were among earliest settlers: Eli Mercer, one of first sugar producers in Texas; and W. J. E. Heard, leader of citizen soldiers. Others were dairy king Gail Borden; William Menefee, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence; and Maj. Andrew Northington, stagecoach operator and surveyor.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge — 18 mi
  Ten thousand acres of native coastal prairie northeast of Eagle Lake, kept for a critically endangered grouse, many of whose birds are hatched in captivity and released here.
• Stafford Opera House — 28 mi
  A cattleman's bank and theater of 1886 on the Columbus square, in a river town Sam Houston burned in 1836 and a county marked by a long feud and a 1935 lynching.

More markers nearby

• William Jones Elliot Heard and Egypt Plantation — steps away
• Glen Flora — 4.6 mi
• Nada — 9.0 mi
• Wharton Training School — 9.3 mi