Whitney

Whitney's first years were hungry. Crops failed across Hill County in 1880, the Handbook of Texas says, and the railroad promised that its first train would bring a bushel of corn for every resident; corn cars kept arriving for months. By 1883 the population was estimated at 1,200, then it fell, and in 1891 citizens staged a barbecue to win people back. They cooked 3,500 pounds of meat, excursion trains ran from as far as Brenham, and six thousand came. By 1895 the town again topped a thousand. Later it styled itself the Getaway Capital of Texas.

What the plaque says

Whitney Whitney, the first railroad town in Hill County, was established in 1879 on the route of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad and was named for railroad investor Charles A. Whitney. Lots in the new town were sold at a "Grand Picnic" on November 25, 1879. An eager crowd bid on the lots which sold at prices ranging between $100 and $750. Several merchants who purchased lots established "tent stores" while carpenters worked night and day to complete wooden frame stores. Soon a central business district was in operation. The new town included a post office, bank, school, several churches, civic organizations, a newspaper, and many businesses. The opera house was the cultural center for entertainment, offering theatrical and musical productions and, later, movies. Several devastating fires burned much of the downtown area over the years, but the citizens rebuilt each time. The building of nearby Whitney Dam caused the town's population to expand in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and brought increased tourism from those visiting the newly created Lake Whitney. The town of Whitney observed its 100th birthday on November 25, 1979. A centennial celebration included a parade, musical entertainment, and fireworks. (1996)

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.
• Bosque Museum — 20 mi
  A Clifton museum holding what it calls the largest repository of Norwegian artifacts in the South and Southwest, with Bosque County finds some 10,000 years old and a log cabin built by the Olson family.
• Meridian State Park — 22 mi
  A 505-acre park in Bosque County where World War I veterans of a Civilian Conservation Corps company dammed Bee Creek in 1933-34 for a 72-acre lake and cut stone buildings around it.
• Cleburne State Park — 25 mi
  A 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps park on the old Chisholm Trail crossing country, with a spring-fed lake, a hand-carved three-tiered spillway and a CCC bridge in Johnson County.

More markers nearby

• Boesch House — steps away
• Pleasant Hill Missionary Baptist Church — 0.6 mi
• Whitney Memorial Park — 0.7 mi
• Towash — 3.6 mi