Sweet Home had two town centers five miles apart

Old Sweet Home had a post office by 1852, with J. A. York serving as postmaster. York laid out the town in 1860 and worked with the West family as the settlement grew around stagecoach traffic, ranching, cotton, and corn. A store, hotel, and stables made it a useful stop on the road.

During the Civil War, freight and cotton wagon trains used the community as a winter camp while carrying supplies between Alleyton and Brownsville. Czech and German families were settling nearby by the early 1870s. Old Sweet Home had become more than a camp; it was a small trading center tied to wagon travel.

The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway passed about five miles south in 1887. George West sold the old-site buildings to Jan Matusek and relocated his store operation near the tracks. Other businesses followed, and the new settlement had six stores by 1890. The railroad agency closed in 1937, but the second town center endured. A cemetery and a few traces remain at Old Sweet Home, leaving the community's name attached to two different places.