Town of Calvert

The plaque's ox-carts, saloons and gold-stacked tables are the boomtown as remembered; the 1977 National Register nomination handles such tales with care. Its writers allowed that shootouts, gold on gambling tables and whiskey barrels in groceries were probably common, but said no one could be sure how common, and that good stories get repeated and overemphasized. What they documented still stands: frame stores replaced by masonry in the early 1870s after the first train arrived in June 1869, and homes spreading east in the late 1870s and 1880s. The district entered the Register on April 3, 1978.

What the plaque says

Town of Calvert Swarming ox-carts and cotton wagons, busy stores and saloons, casino tables stacked with gold: this was early Calvert, a major cotton export and trade center. Community began as "Sterling," in Sterling C. Robertson colony of the 1820s. It was center of mustering and military supply activity in Civil War, 1861-1865. When Houston & Texas Central Railroad route was established here, 1868, town was moved 2 mi. to the right of way and renamed for Judge Robert Calvert, pioneer Texan, local landowner, benefactor, and civic leader-- a descendant of Lord Baltimore of Maryland. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Calvert — steps away
  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.
• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 20 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.

More markers nearby

• Casimir Drugstore — steps away
• Home Area of Chinese Farmers — steps away
• Sneed Memorial Methodist Church — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Calvert — 0.3 mi