SMITHVILLE CONTINUES TO MAKE HISTORY

SMITHVILLE SMITHVILLEcontinues to make continues to make

Smithville's present site is on the original Mexican land grants given to Dr. Thomas J. Gazley and Louis Loomis. Dr. Gazley arrived in 1827, received his Mexican land grant in 1831 and settled here in 1837 following the Texas Revolution. He signed the Texas Declaration of Independence from Mexico. He became a judge, was elected to serve in the Republic of Texas Congress, and operated a store where 3rd Street meets Highway 95 until his death in 1853. Today, Independence Park is located at this site. Dr. Gazley’s store and settlement anchored the development that occurred in these early years. The small community was called “Smithville” after another early settler, William Smith. Smith owned a store in the village centered along the Colorado River east of Gazley’s land. Life rocked along for the next 20-30 years for the seventeen families who comprised the original rural community. The first church was organized in 1871 and the Post Office was established on August 23, 1876, putting Smithville on the map! Those original settlers were joined by successful entrepreneur John Fawcett and admired statesman Thomas Hardeman, both of whom lived just west of Smithville. Local businessmen and farmers established a ferry that crossed the Colorado River to help bring supplies to and from the village.

When it became known that a railroad was to be laid through the area, Murray Burleson and his partners acquired land and formed the Smithville Town Company. Burleson donated land to the Taylor, Bastrop & Houston Railroad Company to encourage the establishment of a Terminus or depot facility at Smithville. On the 4th of July, 1886, the first passenger train blew its way into the little town! One of the earliest “large” industries in town was a steam cotton gin and grist mill established by George Jones in 1890. When Smithville was the terminus of the T, B & H Railroad. The railroad merged with the Missouri, Kansas & Texas in 1891 and the M-K-T (also known as the “Katy” line), established its central shops in Smithville in 1894, bringing a work force of 500 men. Overnight the town’s population doubled. Construction of brick commercial structures and wooden residences began at a feverish pace. The number of new residents gave rise to churches, general stores, drugstores, hotels, markets, saloons, lumber and brick yards, and organizations such as the Masons and the Oddfellows.

The City of Smithville was incorporated on March 30, 1895, with a population of approximately 2,500, and was followed shortly by the creation of the Smithville School District. The first bridge was built across the Colorado River at the north end of Main Street in 1900. The city’s population reached a peak of 4,200 during World War II when many families of soldiers stationed at Camp Swift took room and board in Smithville homes. Smithville’s young people have contributed to both World Wars, Korea, Vietnam, Dessert Storm and more recent conflicts throughout the world.

These brave men and women are commemorated in the beautiful Smithville Veterans Park, dedicated in 2013. During the 1970s, the University of Texas M. D. Anderson Cancer Center established a Science Park in the piney woods just north of Smithville to conduct groundbreaking research of the highest quality in the search for cancer cures. The Smithville-Crawford Municipal Airport opened in 1971 and is continually being improved for airplanes and helicopters. In the 1990s, the motion picture industry discovered Smithville with the making of Hope Floats, and in 2008, Smithville became the very first “Film-Friendly Town” in Texas. Since then, many Hollywood and independent films have been made in and around Smithville. Today, Smithville is a Preserve America Community, with both Commercial and Residential Historic Districts, named a Cultural District by the Texas Commission on the Arts, and boasts two museums. This small town is proud of our growing population and interested in protecting its historic hometown atmosphere and its peaceful, friendly way of life. See Visitsmithville.org for more info

Photos courtesy Smithville Historical Society

There have been good times & bad times:

• December 25, 1905 the 11-year-old depot burned • In 1906 the replacement depot building opened • A boiler explosion of February 8, 1911, killed ten people outright • December 4, 1913 the largest flood on record took out the new bridge at Main Street. • April 2, 1917, US enters World War I • 1917 and 1918, Chicago White Sox play Smithville’s Katy team here • 1929, a new roundhouse and car shops were built with hedges and flowers lining the walkways • The Great Depression followed by

World War II • Freeways are built, roads improved. • November 11, 1957, last passenger train passed through Smithville • November 1967, the depot burned • August 12, 1988, Union Pacific bought the Katy • June 15, 1991, the first chamber of commerce building opened, partially to eliminate a problem area for the city and to anchor the business district • January 19, 2019, the Chamber of Commerce and new Railroad

Museum was dedicated • 51 days later, March 24, 2019, the

Chamber of Commerce, Railroad

Museum burned by arsonist • Sept. 2021, the newer, larger

Chamber of Commerce,

Railroad Museum was dedicated. (see cover)