Visitors Guide

Navasota and Grimes County are filled with everyday attractions and special events, most of them with warm welcome signs out on a daily, informal basis.

Navasota's Victorian homes are known throughout Texas and are frequently on the popular tour stops for both Texans and out-of-state visitors. You'll find some of our older homes and house of worship dating back to the 1800s.

The city is brimming with quaint and unique shops in its downtown selling antiques and collectibles - and the list of shops is growing almost daily.

Navasota itself is closely identified with the famed French explorer, René Robert Cavelier Sieur de LaSalle and one of the city's main thoroughfares is named in the Frenchman's honor. Navasota's earliest visitor is believed to have been killed by his own men near here in 1687. A fourteen and a half foot bronze statue of the Frenchman - a gift from the French Government on March 6, 1930 - dominates Navasota's main street and is a the cornerstone of a two-block esplanade along East Washington Avenue. The monument is lighted for better viewing at night.

The esplanade also features a permanent granite Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial honoring Grimes Countians who died in all wars. Grimes County veterans hold a simple candlelight ceremony there annually to honor the memory of fallen soldiers.

Within the city are more than 30 unique and wonderful homes and churches, some dating back more than 130 years. St. Paul's Episcopal Church at 414 East McAlpine Street began at nearby Washington-on-the-Brazos in 1854, then was moved to Navasota in 1869 and remodeled to resemble an English village Gothic Church in 1891.

The First Presbyterian Church, 302 Nolan Street, was built of native stone in 1894. It's steeple stands 75 feet above ground and its genuine leather bellows pipe organ uses 1,846 massive pipes to fill the Sunday morning air during services. The church was actually founded in 1859 by those working or following the Houston and Texas Central Railroad.

The Castle Inn at 1403 East Washington Avenue was built in 1893 and is a romantic frame mansion now used as a unique bed and breakfast built by merchant, cotton dealer and oil company investor, Ward Templeman, for his bride, Annie Foster Templeman. The mansion was built by local German craftsmen with extensive use of now-extinct curly pine, bevel glass and intricate inlaid flooring.

The Horlock History Center and Museum at 1215 East Washington Avenue is a two-and-a-half story cottage build in 1892 by Col. R. A. Horlock for his family and current serves as Navasota's historical depository for Grimes County artifacts. The home and its gingerbread styling is also the home to the Grimes County Heritage Association and is open for tours.

An east 11 miles along SH 90 and its rolling hills to the northeast is the Grimes County seat of Anderson and it's historic 1894 courthouse which dominate's main street of the county's second-largest incorporated city.. The courthouse sits atop the highest of seven hills of Anderson and has been designated as a "Texas Treasure" and is listed as both a State Archeological Landmark, a Texas Historic Landmark and the National Register of Historic Places.

If your interest involves history, Anderson is the right stop which should also include a visit to the Fanthorp Inn State Historical Park on the south end of Anderson's central thoroughfare. This inn first opened for business in 1811 and quickly became the most famed stagecoach stop in the region before builder Henry Fanthorp and his wife, Rachael, took sick with Yellow Fever and died in 1867. The hotel closed shortly after that, but has now been restored to its 1850s condition. Sam Houston and Anson Jones were among the famous tenants at the inn. Texas Parks and Wildlife offers rides on the 1850 Concord stagecoach replica and tours of the two-story inn. Nearby is the 1844 Fanthorp Cemetery.

Navasota and Grimes County come alive annually with a variety of special events. One of the most successful and longest-running county fairs is held the second week in June each year at the Grimes County Fairgrounds two miles northeast of Navasota. Each year, the Grimes County Fair which promotes the county's youth, features livestock, home economics, world-class bull riding, lots of food and name-brand entertainment at its popular dances. The new Grimes County Fair Queen is named each year and little cowboys and cowgirls get to try their hands at "mutton bustin.'"

A growing attraction and one unique to the area is the annual Navasota Blues Festival, a two-day musical extravaganza in June which has grown to attract the best of the best in the varied world of blues music. The festival remembers well-known black blues legend, Mince Lipscomb, a man who called Navasota home the last years of his life and celebrated his life with the music, stories and words of the "bottomlands" around the Navasota and Brazos Rivers. Proceeds from the annual festival go for a scholarship given to a graduating Afro-American student in Grimes County.

Grimes County is also home to the amazing Texas Renaissance Festival presented seven Saturdays and Sundays from October to November at Todd Mission on FM 1774 south of Plantersville. The 15-acre park is an magical 16th century English village filled with castles, knights, magicians and some of the best and most unique food of the country. It offers more than 330 shoppes, lush gardens and amazing entertainers performing on 22 stages. Last year, in the park's 25th year, the five-millionth visitor passed through towering gates for believable step back in time.

Seven miles to the west of Navasota, crossing both the Navasota and Brazos River bridges is Washington-on-the-Brazos State Historical Park, known as the "Birthplace of Texas." and first capital of the Republic of Texas. On this beautiful site overlooking the Brazos River, the Texas Declaration of Independence was signed in 1835. Today, the state park and its Star of the Republic Museum are filled with Texas history. It is also the site of the Barrington Living History Farm depicting 1850s life on a Texas plantation. The park is also the central location for one of the state's major annual celebrations each year on Texas Independence Day.

Navasota, meanwhile, is the home of hospitable, courteous and genuinely friendly people who enjoy sharing their heritage with visitors who find the oak-lined streets unique in the area. Shops downtown and along the main thoroughfares are filled with hand-made treasurers, antiques and a majesty of homes and businesses show casing tours, early Texas craftsmanship, ornate brass work and historical buildings. Navasota's downtown is listed on the National Register of Historic Places and offers visitors a genuine peek into ornate 19th Century architecture, antebellum and Victorian-style homes and businesses.

The city's Cedar Creek Park is a mile-and-a-half mostly-paved footpath leading joggers or walkers along the banks of the waterway which intersects Navasota and winds its way through a number of parks and beside a number of city-owned and maintained pavilions.

Visitors who come in the spring will find the countryside ablaze in wildflowers, particularly the beautify bluebonnets and Indian blankets which sweep over the hills and valleys throughout the region.

Welcome to Navasota and Grimes County - small town atmosphere with old-fashioned values and a rural lifestyle that's hard to escape - with churches, schools, hospitals, community facilities and good neighbors to make you want to stay.