John Silas Edens

Edens's home place helps date Leroy. The plaque says he settled in the Leroy community in 1868, but the Handbook of Texas places the town's start in the late 1890s, when the Smith Land Company and the International-Great Northern Railroad laid it out and named it for Leroy Smith, president of both. A post office opened in March 1900. By 1914 Leroy had two general stores, two groceries, a gin, a lumber company, a private bank and 200 residents. The bank's 1987 closing wiped out many residents' savings because deposits were uninsured. Leroy incorporated in 1974.

What the plaque says

John Silas Edens Arkansas native John Silas Edens (b. December 15, 1820) arrived in present-day Houston County, Texs, in 1831. He served in the Republic of Texas army in 1836 then joined the Texas Rangers and participated in several Indian campaigns in 1841. He returned to farm and ranch in Houston County where he and his first wife Amanda Adams reared a family of 7 children. He served in the Confederate army during the Civil War then returned to his Houston County home and established the area's first school. In 1868 the Edens moved to McLennan County and settled in the Leroy Community. Edens died at his Leroy home on July 3, 1892. (1994)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Waco Mammoth National Monument — 7.6 mi
  A bone bed on the Bosque River where a nursery herd of at least 19 Columbian mammoths was trapped and drowned by floodwater 65,000 to 72,000 years ago, left in place under a dig shelter.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 10 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 11 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 11 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.

More markers nearby

• Ross — 1.0 mi
• Louis Moore — 5.2 mi
• McLennan County — 5.2 mi
• Saint Mary's Cemetery — 5.3 mi