McGREGOR

McGregor, first known as McGregor Springs, is an incorporated town sixteen miles southwest of Waco on U.S. Highway 84 in western McLennan County. It was established in 1882 at the intersection of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe and the Texas and St. Louis railways. The new town was named McGregor Springs in honor of Gregor Carmichael McGregor, a doctor who gave the railroad right-of-way to cross his land. Advertisements for excursion trains to the prospective city appeared in Texas newspapers, and on September 7, 1882, a state land commissioner sold lots at auction from the back of a railroad flatcar. Because of its favorable location, McGregor drew much of its early population and several businesses from nearby small communities like Banks and Comanche Springs in McLennan County and Eagle Springs in Coryell County. The post office at Banks was transferred to McGregor in October 1882, keeping Thomas H. Baker as postmaster. By 1884 McGregor had a wide variety of businesses, a weekly newspaper, a school, and several hundred residents. The town adopted a city charter in November 1886. The next decade or so brought the addition of two hotels, a national bank, a washing-machine factory, a tannery, a cottonseed oil mill, and an artesian waterworks. The census of 1890 gave the population of McGregor as 774, but other estimates for the same time period were as high as 1,500.

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.