Waller County

Waller County began with a Black majority, and the vote was taken from it within a generation. In 1880 the county had 9,024 people, 5,830 of them African American, and its voters backed Republican presidents from 1872 through 1896. In the 1880s a White Man's Party formed to curb Black participation, and some elections turned violent. Republican ballots fell from 1,493 in 1896 to 760 in 1900. After the state's 1903 white primary law, only 144 Republican ballots were cast in 1912.

What the plaque says

Waller County Created from Austin and Grimes counties, April 28, and organized Aug. 16, 1873. Named for Edwin Waller (1800-1861), a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, 1836; Postmaster General, Texas Republic; First mayor of Austin. Site of rich 1831-1874 Groce plantations, later home of sculptress Elisabet Ney. Hempstead, founded 1857 during building of Houston & Texas Railroad, an important transportation center, is the county seat. Since 1876, county has been site of Prairie View Agricultural and Mechanical College. Economy is based on industry, diversified agriculture and oil production.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Star of the Republic Museum — 16 mi
  A star-shaped museum of the Republic of Texas years, 1836 to 1846, built at Washington-on-the-Brazos after a Brenham campaign and opened on March 1, 1970.
• Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historic Site — 16 mi
  The townsite on the Brazos where delegates met in a cold, unfinished hall in March 1836 to declare Texas independent, with Independence Hall rebuilt and Anson Jones's Barrington farm worked as in 1850.
• Navasota — 20 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.
• San Felipe de Austin State Historic Site — 20 mi
  Stephen F. Austin's colonial capital on a Brazos bluff, the town of the Consultation and the first Texas newspapers, burned by its own garrison in the Runaway Scrape of 1836.

More markers nearby

• Hempstead, C.S.A. — steps away
• Former Waller County Post Offices — steps away
• Hempstead High School — 0.5 mi
• Madison "Matt" "Kilpatrick" — 1.2 mi