DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about London Town Square, right here in Kimble County. Now, every town's got a story behind its name, and London, Texas is no exception. Back around 1878, a man named Len L.
Lewis — the local postmaster — sat down and platted this very square. He had a name all picked out for the place: Betty Lewis, after his wife. Sweet gesture.
The postal authorities, however, were not moved by the romance of it. They vetoed it, flat out. So the name Lewis wanted didn't stick.
What did stick, according to the thinking that's come down through the years, is that the Pearl family proposed the name London — for their old hometown back in Kentucky. And London it became. Lewis had planned this square as the court square of a proposed county.
That's a man with ambition, layin' out a town center before the county even exists. Whether that county ever materialized the way he envisioned, well, the marker doesn't say. But the square is still here, so make of that what you will.
London sat right on the Western Cattle Trail, and that was no small thing. Trail drivers actually took up residence here, and the town sold supplies to the crews coming through with those longhorn herds. Picture this square as a waystation for some of the great cattle drives of the era — blacksmith shop hammering away, stores stocked and ready, a cotton gin running.
Three churches and a school rounding out a community that knew how to take care of its own. And here's the detail that tends to make people stop and look twice at this square a little differently. Coke R.
Stevenson — the man who served as Texas Governor from 1941 to 1947 — lived here in London as a child. Right here, in this town that a postmaster platted, that a Kentucky family may have named, on a cattle trail that kept the whole place alive. Small towns have a way of producing large stories.
London, Texas is proof of that.
What the marker says
PLANNED AS COURT SQUARE OF PROPOSED COUNTY. PLATTED ABOUT 1878 BY POSTMASTER LEN L. LEWIS, WHOSE TOWN NAME CHOICE, "BETTY LEWIS "(FOR HIS WIFE), WAS VETOED BY POSTAL AUTHORITIES. "LONDON" IS THOUGHT TO HAVE BEEN PROPOSED BY THE PEARL FAMILY, FOR THEIR OLD KENTUCKY HOME TOWN. ON THE WESTERN CATTLE TRAIL, LONDON HAD TRAIL DRIVERS AS RESIDENTS AND SOLD SUPPLIES TO CREWS PASSING WITH LONGHORN HERDS. BUSINESSES IN EARLY DAYS: BLACKSMITH SHOP, STORES, COTTON GIN. ALSO THERE WERE 3 CHURCHES AND A SCHOOL. COKE R. STEVENSON, 19411-47 TEXAS GOVERNOR, LIVED HERE AS A CHILD. (1971)