Birome

Duane's take

Here's what the official marker has to say, and I'll tell it to you the way it deserves to be told. Now, the name Birome. You hear it and you might think it's just another dot on the Texas map, but there's a story folded right inside that word, if you know how to listen.

Because Birome isn't a name somebody dreamed up. It's two names pressed together. Bickham and Jerome Cartwright, descendants of a man named Matthew Cartwright, who back in 1856 held a land patent that covered this very ground.

That's right. The land under that little town was already spoken for before the railroad ever came through. Before the station, before the market, before anybody called it anything at all, Matthew Cartwright had his name on it.

Then 1910 rolls around, and Birome gets founded. The International and Great Northern Railway lays its tracks through southern Hill County, and this town becomes one of five stations the line puts down in that stretch of country. Five stops, and Birome earns its place among them.

It grows into an important agricultural market, a place where the work of the land finds its way to somewhere it can be sold. So when you say the name Birome out loud on this highway, you're saying Bickham and Jerome in the same breath. Two names, one town, and a piece of ground that's been carrying the Cartwright story since 1856.

What the marker says

Founded 1910. One of five International and Great Northern Railway stations in southern Hill County. Important agricultural market. Named for Bickham and Jerome Cartwright, descendants of settler Matthew Cartwright, whose 1856 land patent included this townsite.