Bellmead

Bellmead is on State Highway 31 two miles northeast of Waco in east central McLennan County. Originally part of the Tomás de la Vega grant, after changing hands several times, the land passed to Col. John W. Lapsley, an attorney in Selma, Alabama. In the absence of the landowner, squatters moved into the area but were finally removed after 1870 in a combination of legal actions, evictions of the squatters by then Sheriff Lawrence S. Ross, and the coming of a railroad line northward from Bremond. Present-day Bellmead is located on land originally part of two farms owned by the Hogan and Ashleman families. Adolph Ashleman and Mont Hogan had their lands surveyed and began selling lots. The population grew in the mid-1920s, when the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad chose the site for its locomotive shops. Several hundred people were employed at the shops, and families began moving to the area. The first school was called Bellmead in honor of Belle Meade Farms, a prominent horse farm in Tennessee. Area schools were consolidated to form the La Vega Independent School District in 1927. A post office was established at Bellmead in 1937 with A. L. Gilliam as postmaster. Residents of the community voted to incorporate in 1939, but the incorporation was soon dissolved for lack of water, sewerage, and fire services. . Some infrastructure was built in the 1930s as men, laid off by the Katy Bellmead Railroad Shop in the declining economy of the Great Depression, worked for the WPA to build sewer lines, streets, and water lines. In the mid-1940s the Bellmead post office was discontinued and replaced by branch service from Waco.

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.