Brown County, Texas
Brownwood is home to 39 official Texas Historical Commission markers — each one telling a piece of the city’s story. Browse the markers below, then find them on the map and discover more nearby with RoadHistorical.
Created August 27, 1856; Organized March 21, 1857. Named for Capt. Henry S. Brown; came to Texas in 1824; Indian trader and fighter, commanded a company at the Battle of Velasco, member of the Convention of 1832; county…
View on map ↗---
View on map ↗In 1901, Brown County commissioners determined their 1881 jail no longer met the needs of the county, and voters authorized the issuance of bonds to pay for the construction of a new facility. The commissioners hired…
View on map ↗Located 13 mi. southwest, this camp was one of a chain of Texas frontier posts a day's horseback ride apart from the Red River to the Rio Grande. Occupied by the Texas Frontier Regiment. Patrols and scouting parties…
View on map ↗--
View on map ↗Alumna, trustee, benefactress of Howard Payne College. Born in Rising Star; daughter of a pioneer Baptist minister. Had teaching career before her marriage to J. Howard Hodge, a Midland theatre and oil magnate.…
View on map ↗(first site 1 mile E; second, 5 miles SE, present location) Settled 1857. Acquired a post office 1858. An oil vein ruined 1860s water well of townsite donor Greenleaf Fisk. Wagon-yard keeper Martin Meinsinger sold…
View on map ↗"Father of Brownwood" (1807-1888) Donor of present townsite of Brownwood, Fisk was noted as a soldier, public servant, surveyor, and businessman. The son of English parents, he was born in New York. As a boy he was so…
View on map ↗Huge World War II training base, Camp Bowie was a home of the "Texas" 36th Division and trained many other units, including the "Dixie" 31st, 4th, and 13th Armored; and 113th Cavalry. It was also Seventh Headquarters of…
View on map ↗This house was erected about 1876 for George H. Adams (1842-1920), a rancher and former Texas Ranger, whose cattle brand was carved into the front step. English-born stonemason William Frederick Morton (1851-1926) built…
View on map ↗Pioneer ranchers Modie J. and Samuel R. Coggin began this house after 1874. They sold it in 1888 to John Wesley Malone (1858-1932), who added the second floor in 1904. Malone ran a hardware store in partnership with his…
View on map ↗Tom Lovell (1852-1911), a native of Scotland, constructed this home for his family about 1889. A contractor, he also built various public structures, including the state capitol in Arizona, several central Texas…
View on map ↗Brothers Samuel R. Coggin (1831-1915) and Moses J. "Mody" Coggin (1824-1902), prominent area ranchers, business leaders, and philanthropists, in partnership with businessman William Claibourne "Clay" Parks (1883-1916)…
View on map ↗Brownwood businessman and civic leader J. A. Walker (d. 1944) built this home in 1901. A prominent Texas Baptist, he was an early benefactor to Howard Payne University. The Colonial Revival styling of the Walker home…
View on map ↗This Colonial Revival residence was constructed in 1904-05 by R. B. Rogers (d. 1935), a prominent local merchant and an active church and civic leader. The elaborate styling of the home features a distinctive two-story…
View on map ↗Credited with being the first permanent settler and first farmer in Brown County, Welcome William Chandler (1813-1870) arrived in 1856 with his wife Sarah, their children and several slaves. Their log cabin was a…
View on map ↗The Pecan Valley Baptist Association was formed by representatives of Baptist congregations in this area in September 1876. Meeting at Indian Creek in June 1889, the association acted on an executive committee…
View on map ↗Named for Bishop Benjamin Franklin Lee (1841-1926), Lee Chapel African Methodist Episcopal Church was organized in 1888. Led by the Rev. George E. Smith, who also organized the first school for blacks in Brownwood, the…
View on map ↗(May 15, 1890-September 18, 1980) Born Callie Russell Porter in Indian Creek, Katherine Anne Porter moved to Hays County with her family following her mother's death in 1892. She left Texas in 1915 and worked as an…
View on map ↗Named for early settler and cattle rancher S. R. Windham, this cemetery dates to 1879. The earliest documented grave is that of J. M. McPeeters, who died on July 18, 1879. Also buried here in that year was Martin Shelby…
View on map ↗(January 24, 1906-June 11, 1936) Born in Parker County, Robert Ervin Howard grew up in the Brown and Callahan County communities of Cross Cut, Cross Plains, and Brownwood. He attended Brownwood High School and Howard…
View on map ↗Affiliated with the Presbyterian Church and named for early Texas circuit-riding minister Daniel Baker (1791-1857), this institution was founded in 1888 by the Rev. Brainard Taylor McClelland (1845-1901). The college…
View on map ↗A native of Virginia, Henry Ford (c. 1845-1910) came to Texas in 1869 and worked as a cowboy on several central Texas ranches. He settled in Brownwood in 1876 and served several terms as county clerk and as a city…
View on map ↗Railroad construction began in Brown County in 1884, and the first train arrived in Brownwood in 1885. This depot was designed by Jarvis Hunt of Chicago and built in 1909 by the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway…
View on map ↗Built in 1914 immediately east of the Brownwood Santa Fe Railroad Depot, this was one of a series of restaurants operated along the Santa Fe line by the Fred Harvey Company, product of railroad agent Fred Harvey's idea…
View on map ↗Eighteen people gathered under a brush arbor near Rocky Creek in Brown County on August 18, 1877, to organize a Baptist congregation. They called the Rev. R. L. Baker as their first pastor, and by November began…
View on map ↗Founder of Howard Payne University, John David Robnett (1845-1898) was born in Missouri, where he was educated at Westminster and William Jewell colleges and was ordained to the Baptist ministry. In 1883, Robnett was…
View on map ↗Noah T. Byars (1808-1888) played an integral role in the establishment of the Baptist denomination in Texas. Born in Spartanburg, South Carolina, he arrived in Texas in the early 1830s and set up a blacksmith/gunsmith…
View on map ↗One of ten children, Brooke Smith was born in 1853 to Paulina Thilman (Doswell) and John Snelson Smith, Jr. In Hanover County, Virginia. The family moved to Indiana in 1860 and then to Waco, Texas ten years later.…
View on map ↗Dr. Mollie W. Armstrong (January 23, 1875-May 23, 1964). Mary Elizabeth (Mollie) Wright Armstrong was instrumental in establishing optometry as a profession in Texas during the first half of the 20th century. A native…
View on map ↗During World War II, Camp Bowie housed several thousand German prisoners of war. The first arrivals, many of whom were troops from General Rommel's division in North Africa, came in 1943. The U.S. Army allowed the…
View on map ↗Brown County, created in 1856 and organized two years later, has had four courthouses. Pioneer settler Welcome William Chandler donated land for the first courthouse, a log cabin. The county moved the building twice,…
View on map ↗George Smith, born a slave in Virginia, and later a Buffalo Soldier and school trustee in Tom Green County, arrived in Brownwood in 1885 and established the town's first school for African-American children. His home…
View on map ↗SMITH CEMETERY ESTABLISHED 1879 HISTORIC TEXAS CEMETERY – 2010
View on map ↗The 142nd Infantry Band of the 36th division of the U. S. Army began during the first World War. Band leader R. Wright Armstrong reformed the group in Brownwood in Nov. 1921. They played at such notable events as…
View on map ↗John Wesley Hardin was one of the most notorious outlaws of the Old West and Charlie Webb was a Brown County Sheriff’s Deputy who was shot and killed by Hardin. Charlie Webb was a Texas Ranger and served Brown and San…
View on map ↗Greenleaf Fisk, a pioneer who later would be known as the “Father of Brownwood,” gave the city five acres in 1868 for a public burial ground. It is now the Main City Cemetery of Brownwood. The original main gate to the…
View on map ↗JENKINS SPRINGS CEMETERY RICHARDSON JENKINS, ONE OF THE FIRST PIONEERS TO SETTLE IN BROWN COUNTY, PURCHASED A FARM JUST SEVEN MILES NORTHEAST OF BROWNWOOD. THE LOCAL SPRING WAS SOON NAMED AFTER HIM AND PROVIDED WATER…
View on map ↗It is estimated that the song “Hey Paula” has been played almost every day somewhere in the world since it was recorded in the fall of 1962. The song and its performers, Paul and Paula, exhibited the “Universal Lovers”…
View on map ↗RoadHistorical maps all 15,000+ Texas historical markers and alerts you as you pass them. Free to download.
Keep exploring