Palestine, Texas - Encyclopedia

GEOGRAPHICAL NAMES

PALESTINE, a city and the county-seat of Anderson county, Texas, U.S.A., about 90 m. E. by N. of Waco. Pop. (1906, estimate) 9773. It is served by two lines of the International & Great Northern railway, and by the Texas State. railway. Palestine is the trade centre of a district which produces cotton, timber, fruit (especially peaches), an excellent grade of wrapper tobacco, petroleum, iron-ore and salt. It has various manufactures, including cotton gins, cotton-seed oil, cigars, lumber and brick. Its factory products were valued at $735,162 in 1905. About 2 m. south-west of Palestine a settlement (the first in the present Anderson county) was made in 1837, and there Fort Houston, a stockade fort, was built to protect the settlers from the Indians. Palestine was laid out and was made the county-seat in 1846; it was chartered as a city in 1875, and rechartered in 1905. In 1909 it adopted a commission government.