Bedias

Bedias is at the intersection of State Highway 90 and Farm roads 1696 and 2620, twenty-nine miles northeast of Navasota in northeast Grimes County. The community was named for the Bidai Indians, whose Caddo name means "brushwood." The town in turn has given its name to the distinctive tektites—called Bediasites—found in Texas, most of which have been discovered within Grimes County. Settlement of the area began in 1835, when Thomas Phiney Plaster established a plantation a few miles west of the present townsite; earliest reports of the community refer to it as Plasterville. In 1844 Archelaus B. Dodson took up residence on the northern edge of the settlement; his wife, Sarah Bradley Dodson, reportedly designed the first Lone Star flag. A post office was established at Bedias in 1846, 1847, or 1867, according to various sources. A Baptist church was organized in 1848, and the first Methodist congregation in the community was formed by a circuit rider from Palestine in 1871. By 1885 the population had grown to 300 residents, who supported four gristmill-gins, three churches, and four privately operated schools.

Adapted from the official Handbook of Texas, a state encyclopedia developed by the Texas State Historical Association (TSHA). It is an authoritative source of trusted historical records.