Site of Old Texas Cotton Palace

The fair began as a Waco woman's newspaper question. In January 1890 a lawyer's wife, remembered only as Mrs. Joe Taylor, asked why Waco should not have a Cotton Palace like Nebraska's Corn Palace, according to Mike Cox. The first building opened in November 1894 and burned on January 19, 1895. The rebuilt fair then ran every fall for twenty-one years and drew more than eight million visitors, with a one-day record of 117,208 on November 3, 1923. It closed on October 19, 1930. The cornerstone now sits at Lovers Leap in Cameron Park.

What the plaque says

Site of Old Texas Cotton Palace Founded in 1894, when Waco was cotton capital of the South. After first exposition to mark end of cotton season, original palace burned; was rebuilt, 1909. Exposition each November had grand royal coronation; nobility came from Texas cities, other states and foreign countries. Featured farm crops, animals; a "warpath" of sideshows; parades, football games, auto shows, horse races and other attractions. The 10,000-capacity coliseum was the setting for grand opera, concerts, coronation balls, shows from Broadway, debutante balls. After 1930, property was sold. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dr Pepper Museum — 0.7 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.
• Armstrong Browning Library — 0.8 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 1.1 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 — 1.2 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.

More markers nearby

• Katy Park — 0.5 mi
• First Baptist Church of Waco — 0.6 mi
• Waco University — 0.6 mi
• Bell's Hill School — 0.7 mi