Town of Riverside

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's the story of the Town of Riverside. Now, eighteen seventy-two was a year when a railroad was cutting its way through Walker County, and the people who lived on that land, they were paying close attention. The Houston and Great Northern Railroad, later known as the International and Great Northern, was being built into the area, and the landowners around there, they did not sit on their hands.

They gave earth, timber, and rock to the road. Not borrowed, not sold. Gave.

And what they were buying in return was something a little more reliable than what they'd had before: shipping facilities. You see, there was already a post office in the region. It sat over in Newport, about six miles to the southeast, right on the Trinity River.

Wharves and all. Sounds fine on paper. Except the Trinity River had a habit of running low, and when it did, those wharves just sat there idle, doing nobody any good.

So on February the twenty-third, eighteen seventy-two, that post office was picked up and moved to the new town. Riverside. And from there, the place got to work.

Churches went up. A four-teacher school. Then came two full blocks of businesses, and they weren't half-stepping.

Stores, a blacksmith shop, a livery stable, a saloon, a barber shop, a two-story hotel, and a cotton gin. That is a town with intentions. Riverside kept growing and changing with the times.

Come the nineteen twenties, Fuller's earth refining plants were built there, adding a whole new chapter to what the town had become. A railroad, a river that ran dry at the wrong moment, and a community willing to haul rock and timber just to get connected to the wider world. That's Riverside, Walker County, Texas.

What the marker says

Founded 1872 when Houston & Great Northern Railroad (later, International & Great Northern) was being built into the area. Walker County landowners gave earth, timber, and rock to the road in order to gain shipping facilities. Post office was moved here Feb. 23, 1872, from Newport (6 mi. SE), where wharves were idle when Trinity River was low. Riverside developed churches, a 4-teacher school, and two blocks of businesses, including stores, blacksmith shop, livery stable, saloon, barber shop, 2-story hotel, cotton gin. In the 1920s, Fuller's earth refining plants were built.