"Waco-Texas" Top 5 Page for this destination Waco by viajeras2

Founded in 1849 along the Brazos River, Waco is located between Dallas and Austin on Interstate Highway 35. Waco has big city advantages, without big city hassles.

Over 120,000 people call Waco home with over 100,000 more in the surrounding areas.

Waco's Historic Suspension Bridge

In the mid-1800s, Texans began to focus their attention on a future that had been dramatically altered by the devastation and economic upheaval of the Civil War. Settlers were moving west, businesses began to flourish and cattle drives became a common sight.

Civic leaders decided a bridge across the Brazos was needed. It took 2.7 million bricks from Wacoan J.W. Mann and $135,000 to build the 475-foot span, which was finished in January of 1870. It was the first bridge built across the Brazos River.

Upon completion, the Suspension Bridge brought the Texas section of the Chisholm Trail straight through Waco. A year later, the railroad was extended into Waco, and the city became a flourishing trade center. Following the bridge's completion, a toll was charged for each person and each head of cattle. On September 1, 1889 the toll charge was eliminated.

The Suspension Bridge showed its sturdy engineering when, during the devastating 1953 Waco tornado, it held fast. The tornado destroyed much of downtown Waco and killed 114 people.

The historic Suspension Bridge is the centerpiece of present-day Waco and is surrounded by lovely city parks. Indian Spring Park is on the west bank and Martin Luther King, Jr. Park is on the east bank. A beautifully landscaped riverwalk connects the bridge to the Waco Tourist Information Center and the Texas Ranger Hall of Fame & Museum at Fort Fisher. West of the bridge is the beautiful 416-acre Cameron Park.

Bridge

The Brazos proper begins at the confluence of its Salt Fork and Double Mountain Fork (two tributaries of which rise west of Lubbock and pass through that city) flowing 840 miles through the middle of Texas. Its main tributaries are the Clear Fork Brazos River, which passes by Abilene and joins the main river near Graham; Bosque River; Little River; Yegua Creek; and Navasota River. Initially running east towards Dallas-Fort Worth, the Brazos turns south, passing through Waco, further south to near Calvert, Texas then past Bryan and College Station, then through Richmond, Texas in Fort Bend County, and into the Gulf of Mexico in the marshes just south of Freeport

http://www.baylor.edu/wacohall/

Waco Hall was built in the late 1920's with the help of the Waco Community assuring Baylor University's permanent location in Waco, TX.