HOME

Welcome to Texas Escapes
A magazine written by Texas

Custom Search

NEW : : TEXAS TOWNS : : GHOST TOWNS : : COUNTIES : : TOPICS : : HISTORY/OPINION : : ARCHITECTURE : : IMAGES : : ARCHIVE : : SITE MAP

Washington County

WILLIAM PENN, TEXAS

Texas Ghost Town
Washington County, Central Texas S

FM 390 (aka La Bahia Road)
12 miles NE of Brenham
Population: 100 est. (since 1990)
(peaked with 127 people in 1904)

Book Hotel Here > Brenham Hotels

FM 390 - La Bahia Scenic Highway
Photo courtesy Gerald Massey. October 2010

History in a Pecan Shell

During the years when Texas was a Republic, a settlement three miles north of here was known as Hidalgo Bluffs. The original grant was to Isaac Jackson who sold it to John G. Pitts in 1839. The town was not named after either of these two men, but a steamboat that plied the river in the late 1840s - when the Brazos River was (occasionally) navigable.

Originally a plantation economy before the Civil War, newly arrived Germans bought the land from the original settlers, as they did in most parts of Austin, Washington and Fayette Counties.

In 1860 Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church was founded and the church standing today was built in 1893.

William Penn was noted for wagon manufacturing in the late 19th century and it retained a working cotton gin into the 1980s - the last one working in Washington County.

See

FM 390 - La Bahia Scenic Highway

A Brief Biography of William Penn, the Man

William Penn Texas - Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church

The Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church on La Bahia Road
Photo by John Troesser

The Bethlehem Evangelical Lutheran Church ca 1893
Photo courtesy Gerald Massey. October 2010

Union Hill Church
Photo courtesy Gerald Massey. October 2010
More Texas Churches

Barn
Photo courtesy Gerald Massey. October 2010

Photo courtesy Gerald Massey. October 2010

Washington County TX - Good Hope Cemetery

Good Hope Cemetery
Photo courtesy Gerald Massey. October 2010
More Texas Cemetery

William Penn Road sign
Photo courtesy Gerald Massey. October 2010

William Penn TX - Washington Co 1887 Postmark info

William Penn TX - Washington Co 1887 Postmark

Cover cancelled with William Penn, TX 1887 postmark
Courtesy The John J. Germann Collection

William Penn, Texas Area Destinations:
Brenham
See Washington County | Central Texas S

Book Hotel Here:
Brenham Hotels | More 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.