Lexington Grew From String Prairie, Then Revived by Rail

James Shaw came to the Lexington area in 1837 along an old buffalo trail. Near a spring-fed creek, a band of Tonkawa people welcomed him. Shaw named the waterway Indian Camp Branch to honor their kindness. He was a surveyor and teacher from Ohio. He had served at San Jacinto and built a cabin nearby.

Twelve years later, Shaw opened the area's first post office at the nearby String Prairie community. Lexington took its name from the Massachusetts town where the American Revolution began. Cotton helped the early settlement, but the trade declined.

Rail gave Lexington another start in 1890, when the San Antonio & Aransas Pass arrived. Indian Camp Branch, String Prairie, and the railroad hold three pieces of the story: a welcome beside water, a community tied together by mail, and a town revived by tracks.