Town of Aquilla

Aquilla began as Mudtown. Settlers came in the 1840s to the nearest timber, the Handbook of Texas says, and the community and its creek were probably named for early settler Aquilla Jones, though the marker derives the name from the Spanish word for eagle. A post office opened in 1859. When the Texas Central tracks crossed the county, businesses and residents moved a few miles south to the line. Illness from creek water ended with a well dug in 1897. By 1914 the town had over 500 people, a newspaper, a bank and a lumber company.

What the plaque says

Town of Aquilla Named for Aquilla (from the Spanish word for "Eagle") Creek. The townsite was surveyed, 1879, when the Texas Central Railroad was built through Hill County. As businessmen and citizens moved here, Aquilla grew to be a main shipping point. At one time, it had 13 retail stores, 3 hotels, a health spa, 4 churches, a school and other businesses. One of the earliest chartered state banks in Texas opened here in 1905. At the town's peak (1910-1920), ranchers, farmers, and drummers (traveling salesmen) filled the streets. Presently, a sound farming economy prevails. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hill County Courthouse — 12 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Waco Mammoth National Monument — 17 mi
  A bone bed on the Bosque River where a nursery herd of at least 19 Columbian mammoths was trapped and drowned by floodwater 65,000 to 72,000 years ago, left in place under a dig shelter.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 21 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 21 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.

More markers nearby

• Prairie Valley Community — 6.8 mi
• First Baptist Church of West — 7.9 mi
• Church of the Assumption — 7.9 mi
• First Presbyterian Church of West — 8.0 mi