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Historical Marker
(College Street, Alvarado Town Square, Alvarado):
Alvarado
Early settler David
Mitchell established a trading post near here in the late 1840s, about
the time colonists of W. S. Peters' empresario grant began to settle
the area. Colonist William Balch, who settled on an area land grant
in 1852, was later to become known as the "Father of Alvarado" for
his efforts in having the townsite surveyed in 1854, establishing
the first general merchandise stores on the square, and for donating
land for a cemetery, school, and union church.
The town, named for Alvarado, Mexico, soon boasted a post office,
homes, businesses, and churches. A community school established about
1855 became The Alvarado Masonic Institute in 1875. Rail lines extended
through Alvarado by the Missouri Pacific Railroad in 1881 and by the
Chicago, Texas, and Mexican Central Railroad in 1884 spurred a local
economic boom. By 1885 Alvarado had several churches, two schools,
two gins, an opera house, a bank, a newspaper, and a population of
about 2,000. The Masonic Institute became the Alvarado Normal Institute
in 1899 and Alvarado High School in 1908-09.
A large jail/town hall erected at this site in the mid-1880s was removed
in the 1920s and replaced with a garden arrangement; a gazebo was
added later. |
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Photographer's
Note:
"Alvarado has at least two former depots. The one pictures here
has some city function. The other is a private residence that now
has no appearance of a ever being a depot." - Barclay
Gibson |
Outlaws Benjamin
Bickerstaff and Josiah Thompson
Photo courtesy Barclay
Gibson July 2011 |
Historical Marker
(City square, E. Weaver Ave. & S. Spears St.):
Outlaws Benjamin
Bickerstaff and Josiah Thompson
Near this site
in 1869, Alvarado citizens ended the lives of outlaws Benjamin Bickerstaff
and Josiah Thompson. A former Confederate veteran and prisoner of
war, Bickerstaff was wanted for the murder of an African American
man in Louisiana shortly after the Civil War. He later joined Alvarado
business owner Josiah Thompson, also a Confederate veteran, and the
two are believed to have participated in numerous robberies and murders
in this area, including incidents in Alvarado. When they rode together
into town on April 5, 1869, organized citizens shot them numerous
times. They were buried in Balch (Old Alvarado) Cemetery.
(2006)
More Outlaws |
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Nearby
Destinations
Alvarado Park Lake - On US 67 three miles east of I-35W
www.tpwd.state.tx.us/fish/infish/lakes/alvarado/lake_id.htm
Alvarado is only:
26 miles S of Fort Worth
on I-35W
30 miles N of Hillsboro
on I-35W
15 miles E of Cleburne
on US 67
26 miles W of Waxahachie
via US 287
Alvarado Chamber of Commerce
400 E. Hwy 67 Alvarado, Texas 76009
(817) 783-2233
Alvarado, Texas Area Hotels:
Cleburne
Hotels | Fort
Worth Hotels |
| Texas
Escapes, in its purpose to preserve historic, endangered and vanishing
Texas, asks that anyone wishing to share their local history and vintage/historic
photos, please contact
us. |
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