Brownwood History

Brownwood’s unique history the perfect spot for business and industry as well as a great place to raise a family, retire, or simply take in the sights of Central Texas.

• The name of the city and county of Brownwood comes from Henry Stevenson Brown, and Texas cattle ranchers and farmers originally settled the area.


• During the late 1860s, a land-title dispute and problems with an inadequate water supply caused the residents to move Brownwood to a sixty-acre site on the west side of the Pecan Bayou, and this the city’s current location.


• As a feeder line of the Western Trail, cowboys drove herds through Brownwood, which caused residents to build stores and saloons to serve their needs.


• Once they built the cotton gin in 1877, Texas began offering land to farmers, which increased Brownwood's population.


• Brownwood became the center of the Farmers’ Alliance after the building of the West Texas District Alliance Cotton Yard. After becoming the center of this, the town established the weekly alliance paper that they named the Freemans Journal.


• In 1884 Brownwood had nine general stores, five saloons, two hotels, two banks, and a grist and steam cotton mills at its incorporation.


• The following year, 1885, the town built the Colorado, Santa Fe, and Gulf Railroad through Brownwood.


• Despite hardships from a boll weevil infestation and various problems stemming from the cotton industry in the early 1900s, the Brownwood population continued growing.


• In 1917, oil was discovered near Brownwood, causing the population to soar.


• In 1912 they built a third short-lived railroad named the Brownwood North and South as a way to connect Brownwood with the Brownwood community, but it lost money, and the town abandoned this railroad in 1927.


• In 1933 many of the Works Progress Administration (WPA) projects, which were part of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal programs, came to Brownwood in the form of Lake Brownwood.


• Camp Bowie was built as a military training installation in the fall of 1940 to eventually become the largest military training center in the state of Texas.


• The closing of Camp Bowie in 1946 and a seven-year drought had a terrible effect on the agribusiness of the region and made it difficult for Brownwood to sustain its growth rate.


• Since the 1980s, businesses such as commercial printing, meat-packing, and manufacturing of items such as construction equipment, leather gloves, plumbing fixtures, and oilfield machinery have helped with population growth.