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Brownwood is on Pecan Bayou at the
intersection of U.S. highways 67, 84, and 377, Farm Road 2524, and the
Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway in south central Brown County.
The city and the county are named for Henry Stevenson Brown. The area
was settled by farmers and cattle ranchers like Welcome W. Chandler
and J. H. Fowler. When the sparsely populated county was organized in
1857, the hamlet of Brownwood was chosen as county seat. A post office
was opened in the town the following year. The town was originally
located on the east side of Pecan Bayou, but in the late 1860s a
land-title dispute and problems with an inadequate water supply
induced the residents to move to a sixty-acre site on the west side of
the bayou donated by Greenleaf Fisk. Brownwood Masonic Lodge was
chartered in 1865. As late as 1872 Brownwood was a small community of
two stores, a log courthouse, and about five dwellings. In 1873 John
Y. Rankin purchased land around the business district and began to
build homes in what became known as the Rankin Addition. In 1876, when
the town had an estimated 120 inhabitants and Cumberland Presbyterian,
Presbyterian, and Baptist churches, the first bank was opened and a
schoolhouse was built that also served as a town hall and a church.
Because Brownwood lay on a feeder line of the Western Trail, stores
and saloons served the needs of the cowboys who drove the herds
through town. A cotton gin was built in town in 1877 as the state of
Texas began to offer the land to farmers.
The 1880s and 1890s were
decades of dramatic growth for the community, as the population
increased from 725 in 1880 to 2,176 in 1890 and 3,965 in 1900. The
town became a center of the Farmers' Alliance with the building of the
West Texas District Alliance Cotton Yard and the establishment of an
alliance paper, the weekly Freemans Journal. Other newspapers
that have been published in the community include the Brownwood
Gazette, Bulletin, and Appeal, the Pecan Valley
News, the Texas Immigration and Stock Farmer, Living
Issues, and the Brown County Banner. In 1885 the Brownwood
Daily Bee became the town's first daily paper. The courthouse
burned in 1880, and a new one was completed in 1884. In 1884, when
Brownwood incorporated, the town had two banks, nine general stores,
five saloons, two hotels, and steam cotton and grist mills. The
following year the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad built through
Brownwood, and in 1886 the town built its first waterworks. An opera
house was built in the late 1880s. By 1890 the town had five churches,
an icehouse, a fire department, and a sanitarium. A second railroad,
the Fort Worth and Rio Grande, built through Brownwood in 1891. There
were also significant developments in education during these years.
Several local schools were consolidated to form the Brownwood
Independent School District in 1883. In 1889 two colleges opened their
doors in Brownwood—Daniel Baker College, founded by the Presbyterians,
and Howard Payne College, a Baptist institution. Daniel Baker closed,
and its campus became part of Howard Payne College in 1953.
Read the rest of the Brownwood History from the Handbook of Texas
Online |
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Brownwood Bulletin Articles
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January
18, 1945
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The
Brownwood Bulletin |
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Baker Street, Brownwood early 1900s
click to enlarge |
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Brownwood, Texas Postcards and
Photographs |
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Early Brownwood History from the Brownwood Online site |
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Brownwood History from Brownwood TX Feels Like Home |
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Brownwood from TexasEscapes.com |
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Brownwood
Online
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Brown County
Extension Service |
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Brownwood in 1880
click to enlarge
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Sante Fe Depot, Brownwood |
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Brownwood North And South Railroad from the Handbook of Texas
Online more Railroad information |
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City Hall, Brownwood |
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Mayors of Brownwood from 1877 from the Brownwood Online site |
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1919 Worley's Brownwood City Directory excerpts |
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1928 Worley's Brownwood City Directory excerpts |
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1938 Curry's Brownwood City Directory excerpts |
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Brown County Jail |
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Brownwood. (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 medicinal oil from 1878 well. Commercial drilling began 1889.
Farming, cotton sales, business town since 1880s; was reached by Santa
Fe Railroad, 1885; Frisco, 1890. Two colleges -- Daniel Baker and
Howard Payne -- were situated here in 1889. Camp Bowie, World War II
Military Post, operated in Brownwood from 1940 to 1946. Center for
agriculture-retail sales-industry. Has a coliseum, parks, 110 miles of
lake shore. (1968)
Historical Marker Text, location: Roadside Park, west of Pecan Bayou
Bridge on US 67/84 on Early-Brownwood line |
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A Walk Through Old Historical Brownwood, available from
the Brown County Historical Commission |
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