Spring

Spring's railroad years belong to its cemetery's row; the Handbook keeps the town's smaller stories. Before the tracks, William Pierpont kept a trading post on Spring Creek from 1838, and 153 people lived here by 1840. The Spring State Bank opened in 1912 and was robbed several times in the 1930s; the story that Bonnie and Clyde pulled one of the jobs is wrong. The bank merged with Tomball's in 1935. The A. F. Russell Day Lily Farm sold by mail order to customers abroad, and from 1969 to 1992 the Goodyear blimp America was based near town.

What the plaque says

Spring Spring Initially a farming community supported by crops, including sugar cane and cotton, Spring was platted by the Houston & Great Northern Railroad in 1873. That same year, Callahan Pickette became the town's first postmaster. In its early years, Spring served as a commercial center for the surrounding area. It was also a focal point for German settlers, including Carl Wunsche, who was prominent in the town's development. The area still has a strong German heritage. A new rail line reached Spring in the early 20th century and, with a roundhouse and railway shops, the town grew in importance as a rail center. Developer R.l. Robinson subdivided land south of the original town, and the commercial area shifted to accommodate the rail junction. The railroads facilitated the development of the lumber industry; Spring boasted a number of mills, both large and small, in the boom era of lumber production. With the boom came the need for new businesses, including hotels, saloons, an opera house, gambling houses, a hospital and a bank. In 1907, residents established the Spring Independent School District. The loss of the roundhouse and the onset of Prohibition led to population decline, and the saloons, hotels, and other rail-supported businesses closed in the 1920s. Still, the dwindling community persisted, creating a volunteer fire department in the 1950s and sustaining its school district, which integrated in the mid-1960s. As the population began to grow again in the early 1970s, new businesses opened, including many specialty shops. With its proximity to a growing urban center and, itself an area commercial center, Spring continues to attract new residents and businesses but retains its unique identity and its link to its early history. (2003)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Houston Park and the Heritage Society — 22 mi
  Ten historic buildings gathered in a downtown park below the skyscrapers, among them the 1870 house of the Reverend Jack Yates, built five years after emancipation.
• Rothko Chapel — 24 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.
• The Menil Collection — 24 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Buffalo Soldiers National Museum — 24 mi
  A museum in Houston's 1925 Light Guard Armory that tells the service of Black soldiers from the Revolutionary War onward, built from one veteran's thirty years of collecting.

More markers nearby

• Immanuel United Church of Christ of Spring — steps away
• Spring Cemetery — 0.5 mi
• Trinity Lutheran Church Cemetery — 6.4 mi
• The Klein Community — 7.3 mi