Smithville

What made the relocated town was the railroad shop. In 1894 the Missouri, Kansas and Texas set its central shops here; the population doubled, and Smithville was incorporated the next year. In 1896 it had about 2,500 people, and a 1909 account called it headquarters for three divisions of the line, with a roundhouse and "a fine Y.M.C.A. building." The town peaked at about 4,200 in the mid-1940s, and in 1949 the railroad still employed several hundred people here. In the 1970s Smithville won a statewide award for the best Bicentennial program.

What the plaque says

Smithville In 1691 missionaries on the expedition of Don Domingo Teran de Los Rios sighted a lagoon which the Indians called Nenocadda. The lagoon, known today as Shipp's Lake, is on the southern edge of present Smithville. Frederick W. Grasmeyer operated a ferry here on the Colorado River in 1836. Steamboats plied the river from 1845 to about 1865. The village of "Old Smithville" was laid out on 640 acres of land granted to Thomas J. Gazley and Lewis Lomas. The town was located along the Colorado River in the northeast section of present Smithville. There were mercantile stores, dry good shops, and a Masonic lodge. In 1876 the first post office was established with John Pride Jones as postmaster. The Taylor, Bastrop & Houston Railroad, later a part of the Missouri, Kansas & Texas system, arrived in 1887, and the town relocated along the tracks. The legend is that a coin was tossed to decide if the name would be changed to Burlesonville for Murray Burleson, who gave land for the railroad depot. The coin toss resulted in "Smithville" being retained as the name, apparently in honor of pioneer settler William Smith. The town was incorporated in 1895 and T. C. Collins served as the first mayor. (1979) Incise in base: Marker Sponsor: Smithville Chamber of Commerce 1977-78

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Bastrop State Park — 10 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 — 13 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.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 32 mi
  Two park units on an 11,000-acre lake between Austin and College Station, joined by a thirteen-mile trailway for hikers, cyclists and riders with primitive camps along the way.

More markers nearby

• Stephen Scallorn — 6.7 mi
• Young School House and Cemetery — 7.1 mi
• Site of Wood's Fort — 7.5 mi
• Winchester Cemetery — 9.1 mi