Deanville

James L. Dean's store was only the first of Deanville's institutions. The Chriesman Chapel School, built by Horatio Chriesman, came earlier and doubled as the Methodist meeting place. A public school opened in the early 1880s and ran until 1973, when it merged into the Caldwell district. Cotton drove the economy, with two gins and a warehouse at one time, and the Houston and Texas Central arrived in 1913. The First State Bank, organized in 1919, served as the community's financial hub for decades.

What the plaque says

Deanville Founded 1872 by merchant James L. Dean (born 1841) on an arm of Chisholm Cattle Trail. The post office was established 1877. Houston & Texas Central Railroad extended line here in 1913. Sons of Hermnan (O.D.H.S.) Lodge, organized in 1916, sponsors annual Fourth of July Celebration. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 11 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 25 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 26 mi
  A museum at Serbin of the Wends, a Slavic people from Lusatia whose congregation of nearly 600 crossed on the Ben Nevis in 1854, losing seventy-three to cholera on the way.
• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 26 mi
  The library of the forty-first president on the Texas A&M campus, opened in 1997, where George and Barbara Bush and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot on the grounds.

More markers nearby

• An Arm of The Chisholm Cattle Trail — 2.7 mi
• Site of Camino Real — 3.6 mi
• King's Highway - Camino Real - Old San Antonio Road — 4.3 mi
• Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church — 5.4 mi