Waelder: The Railroad Absorbed a Town

Waelder was one of a string of depot towns the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway planted across South Texas in the eighteen seventies, each one named by railroad president Thomas Peirce after someone he thought worth commemorating. This one honored Jacob Waelder, a prominent San Antonio attorney. The practical consequence was that a nearby settlement called Hopkinsville, five miles to the north, simply relocated itself to the railroad tracks.

The Hopkinsville Masonic Lodge moved to Waelder in May eighteen seventy-eight. Churches, doctors, and businesses followed. By the early eighteen eighties the combined town had saloons, a livery stable, a brickyard, and two steam mills.

Waelder incorporated in eighteen eighty-seven with E. W. Walker as its first mayor.

The cattle industry drove early growth, with herds pushed up the trail from Gonzales County ranches.