NASHVILLE, TEXAS
AKA Nashville-on-the-Brazos

First Milam County Seat

Texas Ghost Town
Milam County, Central Texas S

30° 49' 33" N, 96° 39' 10" W (30.825833, -96.652778)
SE Bank of the Brazos River
On Highways 79 / 190
20 miles E of Cameron the county seat
5 Miles NE of Gause
5 Miles W of Hearne
Population: 0

Book area hotels › Hearne Hotels

Nashville Texas Centennial Markers
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, December 2008

History in a Pecan Shell

Sterling C. Robertson, namesake of neighboring Robertson County, founded the town here in 1835, making it the center of Robertson’s Colony. After the Texas Revolution it was one of several sites considered to become new capital of the Republic.

For nine years, beginning in 1837, Nashville served as the Milam County seat, but in 1846 Cameron took that title. Nashville may have continued on its own, but with the arrival of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad at Hearne in 1868, the thinning population all but abandoned the site, closing the town’s post office that same year.

The Daughters of the American Revolution, with additional funds furnished from Milam County, bought part of the former site, deeding it to the state of Texas in 1927. Nashville was remembered during the Texas Centennial with the markers shown above. A cemetery at the site is shown on the TxDoT Milam County map.

"Site Of the Town of Nashville" Texas Centennial marker

Nashville Texas Centennial Markers
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, December 2008
See Texas Centennial

Photographer's Note:
"The Nashville Centennial Marker is in Milam County 5 miles northeast of Gause on US 190 just before crossing the Brazos. Note what looks like gun shot blasts in the granite." - Barclay Gibson, January, 2009

DAR Centennial Park marker, Nashville Texas

DAR Centennial Park marker
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, December 2008

A missing marker in Nashville
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, December 2008

Milam County 1940s map showing Gause
From Texas state map #4335
Courtesy Texas General Land Office

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