Site of Hopkinsville

Hopkins bought his land from Thomas Zumwalt in 1851, and by 1853 the town had a post office, with Isaac K. Zumwalt as postmaster. Blacksmiths, a gin, a general store, saloons and a gristmill followed. On June 18, 1856, Thomas Zumwalt deeded land to the Baptist trustees for a school, a Masonic lodge and a church open to all denominations. When the railroad passed five miles south, R. L. Miller's store left for Waelder in 1874 and the post office closed in 1876. Some families took their houses apart and rebuilt them in Waelder; others left their cabins standing.

What the plaque says

Site of Hopkinsville Once a thriving pioneer community. Founded by D. S. Hopkins (1819-1917), farmer who settled here in 1852. Located in farm-ranch area. Herds started here, bound for Chisholm trail. Abandoned 1873 when the citizens moved south and founded town of Waelder on newly built railroad. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 23 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.
• Bastrop State Park — 24 mi
  The westernmost loblolly pines in the United States, cut off from the East Texas forest by a hundred miles of post oak, burned almost entirely in 2011 and growing back.
• Texas Wendish Heritage Museum — 32 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.

More markers nearby

• Leander C. Cunningham — 3.8 mi
• Hopkinsville Lodge No. 183, A.F. & A.M. — 4.5 mi
• The Town of Waelder — 4.5 mi
• Delhi — 6.7 mi