Somerville

Somerville began with a lot and a store. In 1883 William N. Landolt bought the first lot in the new townsite, a mile north of Yegua Creek, and opened a commissary; J. R. Lyon built the first general store in 1893. In the mid-1890s a group of Chicago investors built the Texas Tie and Lumber Preserving Company, for decades the only large industrial plant in the county. The town incorporated in 1913 under a city commission form of government and reported 1,879 residents in 1925.

What the plaque says

Somerville Located where two branches of the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway joined, town was named for Albert Somerville, first president of the railroad. First settlers arrived after town was surveyed about 1883; the post office was permanently established in 1897. Somerville boomed in the 1890s when local citizens persuaded a railroad tie plant to locate here. Santa Fe Railroad bought the operation in 1905; this is still an important industry. Incorporated in 1913, the town has become a recreation center since Lake Somerville was created in the 1960s. (1974)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 11 mi
  A crossroads north of Brenham that was the richest town in Texas when it won Baylor University in 1845, refused the railroad, and lost the college to Waco and Belton in 1886.
• Lake Somerville State Park and Trailway — 12 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.
• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 20 mi
  The library of the forty-first president on the Texas A&M campus, opened in 1997, where George and Barbara Bush and their daughter Robin are buried in a family plot on the grounds.
• Round Top and Festival Hill — 22 mi
  A German village on the old La Bahía Road, named for a house tower, with an 1867 stone church, a Fourth of July kept since 1851 and a concert hall a pianist built without blueprints.

More markers nearby

• 1906 Reunion of Hood's Texas Brigade — steps away
• Site of the Somerville Harvey House — steps away
• Thomas J. Gary — 0.4 mi
• Lake Somerville — 1.0 mi