The lovely 100-year-plus-old house/museum known as the Cox-Hyson House, built in 1908 in downtown Smithville, is open only by appointment. However, volunteers usually work in the metal archives building behind the home on Tuesday mornings between 10 a.m. and noon. Visitors are welcome in the archives. There are exhibits in the house that take you back to the early 1900s when this former home was built. Old newspapers, photographs, documents, maps, Smithville cemetery information, and other donated artifacts are kept in the metal archives in the back building.
The first settler in what is now Smithville was Dr. Thomas Jefferson Gazley, who established himself on the site now called Independence Park and eventually opened a medical practice and store. The Smith family soon followed, opening a trading post, and the “Old Smithville Village” grew along the Colorado River. After the arrival of the M-K-T railroad in 1887, the population grew to the point that, until the beginning of World War II, Smithville was the largest town in Bastrop County.
Plan A Visit
602 Main Street, Smithville, Texas
512-629-2197
www.smithvilletx.org/art-museums
Open by appointment only
Archive access – Tuesdays: 10 a.m. to Noon