At a fountain named La Pila, children frequently splashed and played while others took a drink or filled jars and buckets with water. La Pila, meaning “the basin,” was the centerpiece and social hub…

Urban renewal programs swept across the United States in the mid-twentieth century. Funded by the federal government, cities throughout the country sought to improve local architecture and expand…

In 1852, John Robinson arrived in Central Texas, from Demopolis, Alabama, with his family and six slaves, founding what would soon become known as Robinsonville. Two years later, his brother Levi…

Lacy Lakeview is a suburban community located approximately five miles north of Waco on Interstate Highway 35 in McLennan County. Lacy Lakeview was part of the league of land granted to Sarah Ann…

The area which once comprised Edgefield Neighborhood has undergone significant changes over the last century. Located on the south side of the city, it encompassed the area between what is today Waco…

The roots of Bellmead grew out of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad Company (M-K-T). In June of 1910, M-K-T purchased 90 percent of the Texas Central Railway, a line of tracks running 268 miles from…

Two years after Texas became a republic in 1836, Israel Washington Speegle formed a wagon train in Tennessee with several of his brothers and his wife’s family members and moved to Texas. When Texas…

An unincorporated township north of Waco, Elm Mott has remained a small but thriving community since its founding in 1872. Two of Elm Mott’s earliest settlers, Louis Bishop Christian and Edward M.…

Calle Dos emerged in the early twentieth century as a haven for Mexican immigrants fleeing border violence and rapidly developed into a center of culture and community for Waco’s Hispanic population.…

In its early days in the 1920s, Castle Heights was just a grassy hill at the end of the streetcar line, with a clear view of the Amicable building downtown. The city of Waco has since grown miles…

Though not uncommon to late nineteenth-and early twentieth-century cities, red-light districts were regarded as areas of ill repute where madams and prostitutes worked outside the law. Yet in 1889,…

Sandtown was a vibrant and predominately Mexican American neighborhood that was active from the turn of the twentieth century to the 1960s. It encompassed the area of downtown Waco between Third…