Murdoch McDonald

J. J. Davis and Murdock McDonald, local landowners, are credited with donating land for the townsite and depot when the International-Great Northern Railroad came through in 1872. The first post office opened that year as Nechesville. By 1884 the community had a Masonic lodge, two steam sawmills, a gristmill, two churches, two general stores, two saloons and about 100 residents. A hotel and two cotton gins followed by 1890, when the population reached about 400. The town was renamed Neches in 1892, and its population peaked near 900 in 1939.

What the plaque says

Murdoch McDonald Murdoch McDonald was born in North Carolina on February 16, 1810, the son of Scottish immigrants. About 1832 he went to Georgia, where he met Dr. George Lester. In 1839, McDonald, along with Lester and his family, came to Texas. Settling in the Mound Prairie area of Anderson county, McDonald farmed and Lester opened his medical practice. In 1843, McDonald married George Lester's daughter, Sarah. They had nine children, six of whom lived to adulthood. In 1871, McDonald donated three hundred acres of land to the International Railroad Company, with the stipulation that a town and station be established, and that he would receive three lots in the town. By 1872 the railroad had reached the new town, and McDonald built a hotel at this site on one of his city lots. The hotel became a social center of the area. Murdoch McDonald, considered the founder of Neches, remained a leader in the community until his death on November 1, 1889. He and his wife are both buried in the Mound Prairie Cemetery. Most of their children remained in the county. One son, John, and a grandson, Walter H. McDonald, operated retail businesses in Neches for many years. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Railroad Excursion Train — 9.8 mi
  A round trip of about 25 miles of track between the Palestine and Rusk depots through the Piney Woods, on a line built by prison labor and reopened as a tourist railroad in 1976.
• Caddo Mounds State Historic Site — 28 mi
  Three earthen mounds of an ancestral Caddo village and ceremonial center on the old El Camino Real, settled about A.D. 800 and still sacred to Caddo people, with a grass house and visitor center.
• Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center — 29 mi
  A Texas Parks and Wildlife hatchery and visitor center in Athens where visitors can borrow tackle and fish a stocked pond, watch native species in gallery tanks and ride a tram around the hatchery.

More markers nearby

• Mound Prairie Cemetery — 4.5 mi
• Fields Chapel Methodist Church and Cemetery — 7.9 mi
• Freeman Farm — 8.6 mi
• Mewshaw State Sawmill and Maydell CCC Camp — 9.6 mi