Texas Historical Marker #02572
Hotel Dallas, 1912. After Eagle Lake was laid out inthe 1850s, Gamaliel good built a Hotel on this corner. The Good Hotel served as a stagecoach and railroad stop. Three railroads crossed town, and commerce was heavy. By 1912 the economy had become dependent on Rice Farming and this structure was built. The Dallas Hotel was the social and business center for the town. Several hotels competed for the travelers' and drummers' business. With the decline of the railroad and the upserge in Automobiles, business decreased. This is the only one left the historic hotels. #2572
201 N. McCarty Avenue, Eagle Lake, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #15088
Methodism in Eagle Lake. Methodism in Eagle Lake The United Methodist Church of Eagle Lake is the oldest Protestant congregation in the community. By 1864, Emma Tracy Rhine started the first private school in Eagle Lake. The one-room schoolhouse served as the first church meeting house in 1872, when circuit rider Orceneth Fisher organized a Methodist church and Sunday school. Emma Rhine organized the first Ladies Aid Society in the same year, establishing a tradition of women's groups in the church. The Methodists met in the schoolhouse until 1880, when the community built a union church. The Methodist, Baptist, Episcopalian and Christian congregations shared the facility until each could build its own sanctuary. In May 1899, J.K. Davidson, James A. Harbert, R.B. Dobbins and W.Y. Westmoreland, trustees of the Methodist Episcopal Church South, bought land on Lake Street. The Rev. R.E. Nunn directed the construction of a brick sanctuary and a parsonage. In 1939, John Robert and Otera (Fussell) Colly donated land and money for a new Methodist church, named Colly Memorial Methodist Church, in momory of their 17-year-old daughter Bobby. She died the year before by electrocution in a swimming pool; a stained glass window behind the altar was given in memory of A.W. Braun, who died trying to save her. The church facilities expanded with educational buildings and a new parsonage. The church moved one block away to the former Eagle Lake High School site in 1976. The stained glass window and a historic bell moved with the congregation, which changed its name to the United Methodist Church of Eagle Lake. More than a century after its founding, the church continues to play a significant roll in the community. (2008) #15088
200 W. Prairie, Eagle Lake, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #16270
Masonic Cemetery. In 1880, the Eagle Lake Masonic Lodge No. 366, established in 1872, purchased this burial ground. Also known as Eagle Lake Masonic Cemetery, the earliest known burial here occurred in 1867. Others buried here include Eagle Lake Mayor and U.S. Representative Joseph Jefferson Mansfield; Women Airforce Service Pilot (WASP) Patricia Braun O'Bannon; and the namesake of Oldham County, Williamson Simpson Oldham (d. 1868), who is among those reinterred. Cemetery features include curbing, monuments, masonic gravestones, grave slabs and obelisks. A Ladies Cemetery Association cared for the burial ground early in its history; today, the Eagle Lake Masonic Cemetery LLC maintains this historic cemetery. #16270
Cemetery Ave. and Prairie St., Eagle Lake, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #01325
Town of Eagle Lake. Named for lake where in 1821 exploring party of Stephen F. Austin killed an eagle. In 1851 resident Gamaliel Good started a Houston-to-San Antonio Stage line with lakeside headquarters. In 1856, with D. W. C. Harris, Good platted Eagle Lake townsite. The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado Railroad reached here in 1859. Early a cattle and farm market; after 1898 had rice production; later ranked as oil center and shipper of sand and gravel. Now fishing and goose hunting mecca. Home town of Gen. H. H. Johnson (born in 1895), military governor of Rome, Italy in the 1940s. #1325
?, Eagle Lake, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #04255
Rice Culture in Colorado County. The rice industry did not spread into the coastal plains region west of Houston until the very end of the 19th century. In 1898, Captain William Dunovant (1845-1902), a local plantation owner and entrepreneur, planted 40 acres of rice at the southeast corner of Eagle Lake (2.5 miles south) as an experiment, using convict labor from a nearby prison farm to construct levees and harvest the new crop. The small tract produced such encouraging results that in 1899 Dunvovant built a pumping plant on the lake and irrigated 250-300 acres. The second venture proved so successful that over 30,000 acres of rice were under cultivation in the Colorado River Valley in 1900, and over 56,000 acres in 1901, mostly in Colorado County. Rice quickly replaced cotton and sugar cane as the primary cash crop in Colorado County. That the crop had a widespread economic impact was reflected in the increase in property values, the influx of new families, the reclamation of abandoned croplands, the rise in new railroad construction, and the rapid development of allied service industries, such as rice mills and irrigation and canal companies. Rice and the culture it supports continue to be a major economic factor in Colorado County. #4255
?, Eagle Lake, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #03013
Lakeside Sugar Refinery. The Sugar Industry, which began in Texas before the Civil War (1861-65), was revived in the late 1800s by cheaper refining methods. One of the leading sugar producers in Colorado County was William Dunovant. In 1898 he and several men from Eagle Lake built the Cane Belt Railroad to take cane to the mill. Later extended, the profitable rail line was purchased by the Santa Fe Railroad in 1902. The success of the railroad encouraged Dunovant to build a refining plant for this area. Lakeside sugar refinery, erected at this site about 1902, processed up to 1,000 tons of cane each day and produced 5,000,000 pounds of refined sugar each year. A train called the "Whangdoodle" carried cane from nearby fields to the refinery. By 1910 Lakeside Mill was one of the largest in Texas, with about 100 employees. It stimulated the local economy and attracted able businessmen, such as Rudolph Wintermann and son Oscar J. Wintermann. After its best season in 1908-09, the sugar industry declined. A state law forbidding use of convict labor raised production costs. A tropical storm damaged the refinery, and an early freeze destroyed much of the sugar crop. Sold in 1913, the Lakeside Refinery was dismantled in 1918 and rebuilt in Jamaica. #3013
?, Eagle Lake, TX, United States
Texas Historical Marker #03558
Navigation of the Colorado River. Because overland travel in early Texas was an enterprise often fraught with hardship, frustration, and danger, many individuals looked to rivers for a solution to the problem. From 1829 to the Civil War, optimistic Texans attempted to ply the area's long, meandering rivers, but met repeated disappointment. The most serious drawback to navigation of the Colorado was "the raft." This was a series of timber masses--some floating, some sunken--choking off the river about 10-25 miles above its mouth. The length was variously given as 3-8 miles. In spite of this, the keelboat "David Crockett" became the first boat to navigate the river, in 1838. After that, flatboats brought cotton, hides, lumber, and pecans down as far as the raft, but there the goods had to be taken off and hauled laboriously by wagon to Matagorda. The Republic of Texas incorporated 2 companies to clear the river and the State authorized the construction of a new channel around the raft, but the obstruction remained an impediment and hazard. Although shallow-draft boats managed occasional trips, the more-efficient railroads eventually took away much business. After the Civil War, Texas Rivers ceased to be an important factor in transportation. #3558
?, Eagle Lake, TX, United States