City of Grapeland

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little flavor on the side. Picture a stretch of East Texas, sometime around 1850, when settlers first started putting down roots in what would eventually become one of Houston County's more interesting little towns. The land was wild then, tangled and green, and those grapevines, rank wild grapevines growing every which way, they were impossible to miss.

That's what the folks who came later reached for when they needed a name. Grapeland. It was right there in the vines.

Now, the town itself didn't get properly founded until 1872, when investors tied to the International and Great Northern Railway decided this was the spot. Railway money, railway vision, railway timeline. The post office followed not long after, opening its doors on May 26, 1873, which meant the place was officially on the map in more ways than one.

The first public building wasn't a courthouse or a saloon. It was a log schoolhouse, and on Sundays it doubled as a church. One building, doing double duty, the way things had to work on the frontier.

Eventually the Disciples of Christ and the Methodists each put up their own proper church buildings, giving the community a little more permanence, a little more shape. Then came 1913, and fire had its say. The business section burned, and when the dust and the ash settled, the merchants came back and they came back in brick.

Solid, deliberate, not going anywhere again. The town was incorporated in 1924, making it official in the eyes of the law. And the economy kept layering itself over the years, peanuts, ranching, truck crops, cotton, manufacturing, and then starting in 1936, oil and gas came into the picture and enriched the whole operation.

These days, Grapeland wears another title too. Gateway to Houston County Lake, all fifteen hundred acres of it. Not bad for a place that started out as a log schoolhouse and a tangle of wild vines.

What the marker says

In area settled about 1850. Founded 1872 by International & Great Northern Railway investors. Named for rank wild grapevines. Post office opened May 26, 1873. Log schoolhouse, used also for church services, was first public building. Disciples of Christ and Methodists erected first church buildings. Business section was rebuilt of brick after 1913 fire. Town was incorporated 1924. Oil and gas, produced since 1936, enrich and economy based on peanuts, ranching, truck crops, cotton, and manufacturing. Town is now know as gateway to the 1500-acre Houston County Lake.