Naples grew where the railroad pulled Wheatville's merchants south

Naples began with a shift of about three miles. Wheatville was settled before 1852, and its post office opened in 1868. Rev. Samuel Morris established a gin, gristmill, tanning vats, and brick kiln there. When the Texas and St. Louis Railway bypassed the village, many merchants moved south to a station beside the tracks. Wheatville faded as the railroad town grew.

The new place went through names almost as quickly as it gathered businesses. It began as Belden. When Wheatville's post office moved there in 1882, it became Station Belden because postal officials apparently worried that Belden would be confused with Belton. By 1884 it had a district school, two churches, two gristmills, two cotton gins, and about 350 residents. By 1890, the weekly Belden Monitor was in print.

Residents submitted a list of new names in 1895, and the post office chose Naples. Lumber became important in the early 1900s, with a narrow-gauge railroad hauling hardwood logs to local sawmills; the town incorporated in 1919. Wheatville and Naples preserve both halves of the change: one began before the railroad, and the other gathered around the line.