The CW&BV and I&GN Railroads in Bryan

The plaque credits George Gould. The Handbook names the line and its founders. The Calvert, Waco and Brazos Valley Railroad was chartered on June 28, 1899, with George J. Gould and Frank J. Gould on its first board alongside men from Anderson and Robertson counties. Its office was in Calvert. By the end of 1900 it had finished sixty-six miles between Bryan and Marlin, plus a branch from Calvert Junction to Calvert. The legislature authorized the I&GN to acquire it on February 12, 1901, and the lines merged on May 1.

What the plaque says

The CW&BV and I&GN Railroads in Bryan Bryan was platted on land granted to the Houston & Texas Central Railroad in 1859. In 1900, a second railroad, the Calvert, Waco & Brazos Valley (CW&BV) was built through Bryan by George Gould. The CW&BV built a depot here in 1900; besides train activities, the depot hosted social events until it was razed in 1990. In 1901, when tracks were extended to Waco, the CW&BV merged with the International & Great Northern Railroad (IG&N). The trains helped Bryan become a center of commerce, as the railroads were used to ship goods, particularly cotton, to larger markets for sale. Passengers also used the trains for travel. Railroad use declined after World War II, though resurgences occurred in the 1970s and 1990s. (2009)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• George H.W. Bush Presidential Library and Museum — 5.4 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.
• Independence and Old Baylor Park — 24 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.
• Navasota — 26 mi
  A railroad and cotton town where the La Bahia Road crossed the Navasota River, scarred by an 1865 explosion and yellow fever, and the home ground of the songster Mance Lipscomb.
• Fanthorp Inn State Historic Site — 27 mi
  A cedar-log dogtrot cabin of 1834 on the road through Anderson that grew into a seventeen-room inn and post office for travelers of the Republic, kept by one family until 1976.

More markers nearby

• First Baptist Church, Bryan, Texas — steps away
• Saint Andrew's Episcopal Church — steps away
• John N. Johnson — 0.2 mi
• Brazos County — 0.2 mi