DUANE
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Duane's take
The official marker tells this one, and I'm just the voice carryin' it down the road. Picture yourself in 1841. The Republic of Texas is young, the land is wide open, and five men have decided that right here, in what was then called Navasota County, they are going to plant a town and make it the county seat.
Those five men were John Millican, John H. Jones, J. Ferguson, E.
Seale, and a fellow by the name of Mordecai Boon. And they named that town Boonville. Now, the county itself didn't keep its name long.
Come 1842, Navasota County became Brazos County. Names change. Towns, though, towns can be stubborn.
And Boonville was stubborn. It flourished. For a quarter century, this was the place.
The county seat, the center of things, the kind of town that makes folks feel like the future is right outside the door. But then came 1866. And with 1866 came Bryan, established right on the railroad.
And that, friend, is the kind of competition no amount of stubbornness can outlast. When the railroad goes somewhere else, the town tends to follow. So Boonville faded, and what was once a flourishing county seat became a site, a place you pass through now maybe without knowing what stood here.
Five men built something real. The railroad just had other plans. Erected by the State of Texas in 1936, this marker makes sure Boonville isn't forgotten entirely.
And out here on the road, neither will you.
What the marker says
Established in 1841 as the county seat of Navasota County by John Millican, John H. Jones, J. Ferguson, E. Seale, and Mordecai Boon whose name it bears. The name of the county was changed to Brazos in 1842. Boonville flourished until 1866 when Bryan was established on the railroad. Erected by the State of Texas 1936