2008 Chamber Board
Contact the Chamber
The Chamber is Temporarily located @ Effort Products
945 Austin St
Hempstead, Texas, 77445
P. O. Box 517
Hempstead, TX 77445
Phone: (979) 826-8217
Fax:
(979) 921-0696
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Hempstead History
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Hempstead, the county seat of Waller County,
is on U.S. Highway 290 at its junction with State highways 6 and 159,
fifty miles northwest of Houston. Dr. Richard Rodgers Peeblesqv
and James W. McDade, founders of Hempstead, organized the Hempstead Town
Company on December 29, 1856, to sell lots in the new town at the
terminus of the projected Houston and Texas Central Railway. The doctor
named the town for his brother-in-law, Dr. G. S. B. Hempstead of
Portsmouth, Ohio. Peebles and his wife, Mary Ann Groce Peebles,
contributed 2,000 acres from the Jared E. Groce, Jr., estate for the
town site, which Mary Ann Peebles helped lay out.
The Houston and Texas
Central was extended to Hempstead on June 29, 1858, and the town became
a distribution center between the Texas interior and the Gulf Coast.
Hempstead incorporated on November 10, 1858, and its importance as a
transportation center increased with construction of the Washington
County Railroad from Hempstead to Brenham. A post office was established
in 1857. During the Civil Warqv the
town served as a Confederate supply and manufacturing center. Hempstead
was the site of a Confederate military hospital; three Confederate camps
were located in its vicinity. Despite occupation of the town by federal
troops during Reconstructionqv and
recurring yellow fever epidemics, Hempstead prospered after the Civil
War.
Availability of transportation facilities and the surrounding
area's large cotton production facilitated growth of textile
manufacturing and cotton processing industries. Merchandising and
processing grew rapidly between 1867 and the 1880s. The town prospered
as a transportation center and became Waller county seat in May 1873.
Hempstead's commercial, manufacturing, and processing sectors suffered
large financial losses from fires between 1872 and 1876. Production of
the town's cottonseed oil mill rose to a $90,000 gross value, second
highest in the state, by 1880. Lack of banking facilities slowed the
retail sector in the 1890s. In 1904 the population was 1,849. In 1906
the Citizen's State Bank was chartered.
In the twentieth century, produce shipping and truck hauling
gradually replaced cotton. The Raccoon Bend oilfield developed near the
town. Hempstead's location on the Southern Pacific Railroad and the
convergence of state and federal highways helped sustain the town's
economy when its population decreased from 2,500 in 1914 to 1,395 in
1959. Hempstead was the largest shipper of watermelons in the United
States until the 1940s. The town had a school by the 1850s; classes were
held in various buildings including the old jail. A freedmen's school
operated from 1866 until 1870. The first public school opened in 1881.
Hempstead became headquarters by 1955 of a school district including
most of Waller County. The Central Texas Teachers Association began
summer normals at Hempstead in 1890.
Violent settlement of disputes, often fueled by political and social
disagreements involving the Ku Klux Klan,qv
Radical Republicans, Greenbackers, Populists, and prohibitionists (see
GREENBACK PARTY, PEOPLE'S PARTY, and PROHIBITION), brought Hempstead the
nickname "Six-Shooter Junction" through the early twentieth
century. Radical Republicans held a state convention at Hempstead in May
1875 and a "black and tan" convention in June 1875. Hempstead
blacks were politically active before disenfranchisement. They
established Methodist and Baptist churches by 1891 and a Lone Star
Masonic lodge in 1893. The Grangeqv
established a store in the town in 1874. Hempstead's relatively large
Jewish community provided a significant stimulus to the town's economy
from its founding through the early twentieth century. One of the
earliest synagogues in Texas outside of larger population centers was
established at Hempstead in the 1870s. Presbyterian, Catholic,
Methodist, Baptist, and Episcopalian churches were constructed there
around the time of the Civil War. The first of many short-lived
newspapers, the Hempstead Courier, began publication in June
1859. In 1991 Hempstead had a weekly newspaper, the Waller County
News-Citizen, which was first published as the Hempstead Weekly
News in October 1891.
The town was disincorporated on February 13, 1899, and reincorporated
on June 10, 1935. The town elected its first black mayor, LeRoy
Singleton, in 1984. Blacks at the time made up approximately 50 percent
of Hempstead's population. White residents have been predominantly Anglo
throughout Hempstead's history, with significant minorities of German,
Italian, and Polish descent. Hempstead resident Lillie E. Drennanqv
was the first woman to obtain a truck driver's license in Texas. In 1966
Hempstead had 1,505 residents; the population reached 3,782 by 1988.
Proximity to Houston accounts for much of the town's prosperity. The
largest employers in 1990 were auto sales, government, and educational
institutions. Hempstead has Texas historical markers for Capt. Alfred H.
Wyly'sqv grave in Hempstead Cemetery
and the courthouse grounds. The Waller County Fair is held in Hempstead
in September. In 1990 Hempstead had a population of 3,551.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mildred W. Abshier, ed., Waller County Whatnots
(Hempstead, Texas: Waller County Historical Commission and Waller County
Historical Society, 1986). Corrie Pattison Haskew, Historical Records
of Austin and Waller Counties (Houston: Premier Printing and Letter
Service, 1969). Frank M. Spindler, "The History of Hempstead and
the Formation of Waller County," Southwestern Historical
Quarterly 63 (January 1960). Frank M. Spindler, "Concerning
Hempstead and Waller County," Southwestern Historical Quarterly
59 (April 1956). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University
of Texas at Austin. Waller County Historical Survey Committee, A
History of Waller County, Texas (Waco: Texian, 1973). Frank E.
White, History of the Territory that Now Constitutes Waller County,
Texas, from 1821 to 1884 (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1936).
Carole E. Christian
taken from the Handbook
of Texas Online
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