Steamboat Washington Landed Here

J. W. McCown Sr. persuaded Captain Basil M. Hatfield to bring the Washington through the upper Brazos and up the Little River in 1850, after rains had raised the water. The Handbook of Texas says the boat and its merchandise caused great excitement, and a two-day celebration was held when it tied up 2.5 miles east of Cameron. River travel could not be counted on, though. Nashville and then Port Sullivan became Milam County's business centers in the 1850s and 1860s, while Cameron waited for a railroad that did not come until 1881.

What the plaque says

Steamboat Washington Landed Here In the winter of 1850-1851 with Captain Basil M. Hatfield, commander, the Steamboat Washington landed here with a shipment of merchandise from Washington-on-the-Brazos to J. W. McCown and Co., merchants at Cameron. The first, last and only steamboat to navigate Little River.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 2.1 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.
• Calvert — 19 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 30 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.

More markers nearby

• First Girl's Tomato Club in Texas — 2.1 mi
• Site of First Home in Cameron — 2.1 mi
• Ben Milam — 2.1 mi
• Milam County — 2.1 mi