Westhoff

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Picture this: the year is 1906, and out on the DeWitt County landscape, a tent city rises up almost overnight. Workers are laying track for the Texas and New Orleans Railroad, and somebody looks out at the view and thinks, well, that's beautiful.

So they call the place Bello. Beautiful View. A town born in canvas and rail iron, with dirt under its fingernails from the very first day.

Now a tent city is a restless kind of place, and this one had ambitions. By the time the dust settled and the tracks were laid, Bello had grown into something with real staying power. Cotton gins, three of them.

Stores, thirteen of them. Thirteen. That is not a crossroads, friends, that is a destination.

People of many different backgrounds put down roots here, and the town became the kind of place where a farming and ranching community could actually thrive. Then came 1909, and with it a new name. The town was renamed for a man called Wm.

Westhoff, a local merchant and political leader born on August 8, 1831, who would go on to pass on March 19, 1911. Westhoff. The name stuck, and the place kept working.

Today it's still a center for farming, ranching, and uranium leasing, still home to many ethnic groups, still out there on the DeWitt County map. Started as a beautiful view, and by the look of things, it never stopped being one.

What the marker says

Founded 1906 as Bello ("Beautiful View"), tent city of workers building Texas and New Orleans Railroad. Renamed 1909 for Wm. Westhoff (August 8, 1831 - March 19, 1911), local merchant and political leader. For a time town had 3 cotton gins, 13 stores. It remains a farming - ranching - uranium leasing center, inhabited by many ethnic groups.