Cypress

The plaque lists Tin Hall and the hot well in passing; the Handbook says more. A dance hall went up on Huffmeister Road in 1878, burned a few years later, and was rebuilt with help from the Cypress Gun and Rifle Club, this time in corrugated tin, which gave Tin Hall its name. After the Gulf Coast oil finds of 1904, surprised drillers about a mile from Cypress struck a hot artesian well, and the Houston Hotwell Sanitarium and Hotel grew around its supposedly healing water. Rice and dairy farming held on until suburbs arrived in the 1950s.

What the plaque says

Cypress CYPRESS ATTAKAPAS AND AKOKISA INDIANS BEGAN TO DISAPPEAR FROM HARRIS COUNTY IN THE MID-1800s WITH THE ARRIVAL OF ANGLO SETTLERS. THE FIRST DOCUMENTED SETTLERS IN THE CYPRESS AREA WERE THE BURNETT AND SIMMONS FAMILIES, BEGINNING BY 1831. MATTHEW BURNETT ESTABLISHED A TAVERN AND INN NEAR THE CYPRESS CREEK CROSSING ON THE ROAD TO WASHINGTON-ON-THE-BRAZOS, AND WAS DESIGNATED AS THE FIRST POSTMASTER AT BIG CYPRESS BY 1840. IN THE LATE 1840s, GERMAN IMMIGRANTS AND SETTLERS SEEKING LAND OWNERSHIP AND RELIGIOUS FREEDOM CAME TO THE CYPRESS AREA, WHICH SOON GREW INTO A RURAL COMMUNITY OF FARMERS, DAIRYMEN AND RANCHERS. SMALL SCHOOLS SERVED THE EDUCATIONAL NEEDS OF THE CHILDREN. MORE A REGION THAN A SINGLE COMMUNITY, CYPRESS ENCOMPASSES MORE THAN A HUNDRED SQUARE MILES WITHIN THE CYPRESS CREEK AND LITTLE CYPRESS CREEK WATERSHEDS, INCLUDING THE EARLY SETTLEMENTS OF BIG CYPRESS, HAMBLIN, EDEN, CYPRESS GROVE, CYPRESS TOP, CYPRESS CITY, AND THE TOWN OF CYPRESS. RAILROADS THROUGH THIS AREA WERE CHARTERED IN 1839 AND 1848 TO FOLLOW A ROUTE THAT WAS GRADED FOR A PLANK ROAD. THE CYPRESS TOP POST OFFICE WAS ESTABLISHED IN 1851 ALONG THIS ROUTE. IN JULY 1856, TRACKS FOR THE GALVESTON AND RED RIVER RAILWAY (SOON RENAMED THE HOUSTON AND TEXAS CENTRAL RAILWAY) REACHED CYPRESS TOP DEPOT, 26 MILES NORTHWEST OF HOUSTON. THE RAILROAD ATTRACTED BUSINESSES AND CREATED A DISTRICT OF STORES, HOTELS AND SALOONS. IN THE EARLY 1900s, THE DISCOVERY OF A HOT ARTESIAN WELL DEVELOPED INTO THE HOUSTON HOT WELL SANITARIUM AND HOTEL. DANCE HALLS, SUCH AS TIN HALL AND JUERGEN'S HALL, WERE POPULAR. CYPRESS TOP HISTORIC PARK PRESERVES A REMNANT OF THE RAILROAD COMMUNITY. (2012)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• The Menil Collection — 24 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.
• Rothko Chapel — 24 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.
• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 24 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 25 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

• St. John Lutheran Church — 2.6 mi
• Matthew Burnett Homesite — 3.2 mi
• Abraham Roberts Homesite — 8.4 mi
• Old Salem Lutheran Church Site — 8.5 mi