Smithville Grew Around the Railroad Tracks

Smithville did not just happen to get a depot. Local businessman Murray Burleson learned the Taylor, Bastrop and Houston railroad was coming. He bought land with partners and helped plat a town site beside the tracks.

The railroad reached the new site in 1887. The Missouri, Kansas and Texas took over in 1891. In 1894 the MKT established central shops in Smithville, and that railroad work pushed the town into a long boom.

The central shops changed Smithville's scale. For nearly 50 years, Smithville had more residents than any other city in Bastrop County. The effects reached well beyond the depot: workers needed homes, stores, utilities, and services.

You can still read that story in the shape of town. The city identifies a Main Street commercial district and an older residential area north of Loop 230. Together they show how a railroad workforce reshaped Smithville, block by block.