Kellner Townsite

The town that took over Kellner's plat grew fast on cotton. A post office was established by 1893, and in 1897 the Brookshire Times reported about thirty businesses and 10,000 bales shipped. Pattison lost ground as its narrow-gauge line closed in 1899, and Brookshire became southern Waller County's distribution center. Cotton's weight faded over the next three decades as prices fell and war industries drew labor, and rice grew every decade after 1900. Melons, corn and pecans also left by rail.

What the plaque says

Kellner Townsite (in NE part, Stephen F. Austin grant to Wm. Cooper) First town in area. Platted 1893 by John G. Kellner (1846-1933), donor, Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad right of way and station site. Kellner's rich Brazos River watershed farm and ranch lands produced rice, cattle, peanuts, pecans, and (later) natural gas. His old home is nearby. Town was renamed Brookshire.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site — 7.8 mi
  Stephen F. Austin's colonial capital on a Brazos bluff, the town of the Consultation and the first Texas newspapers, burned by its own garrison in the Runaway Scrape of 1836.
• Attwater Prairie Chicken National Wildlife Refuge — 20 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.

More markers nearby

• Captain Nathen Brookshire — 1.0 mi
• James Tarrant Pattison Homesite — 3.1 mi
• Isaac Best — 3.8 mi
• Judge Edwin Waller — 5.0 mi