The town of Lyons was established around 1837, during the Republic of Texas days. After Texas was admitted to US statehood in 1845, the town continued to grow. When southern US states including Texas seceded in 1861, when the Civil War broke out in April, the United States instituted a military blockade of ports along the Texas Coast, depriving Texas farmers from getting their cotton to markets in Mexico and Europe. Faced with economic ruin and needing cash for the war, the Confederate Government encouraged development of the "Cotton Road" smuggling route, and Lyons was right on it. The town prospered during the 1860s, but with war's end and the construction of the Southern Pacific Railroad through Schulenberg in 1873, Lyons disappeared.
From the website Ghost Towns of Texas: (
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"LYONS, TEXAS
AKA Lyonsville
Texas Ghost Town
Fayette County, Central Texas S
US Highway 77
S of Schulenburg
S of La Grange
History in a Pecan Shell
By Carolyn Heinsohn
1. Also known as Lyonsville, part of league of land granted to Kesiah Crier, a widow with three children, in 1831 by Mexican government. Kesiah started selling tracts of her land after 1845.
2. Community named after the Lyons family who were attacked by Comanches; the father was killed and a son was captured and raised among the Indians.
3. By circa 1853, a store and post office was built by Neil McKinnon. The Navidad Baptist Church purchased acreage for a church that same year in the T. Taylor League, southeast of Lyons Post Office.
4. Lyons Lodge No. 195, AF&AM, was organized in 1856 and met in a room on the McKinnon farm.
5. Lyons population peaked around 1860; four physicians lived in the area, and a saloon and other businesses were established.
6. 1861 – the Lyons Lodge constructed a building for a church and school on the McKinnon farm.
7. During the Civil War, property was ruined and stock driven off, so settlers moved away after the war, and the town disappeared. Some moved to Blum Hill, or later, High Hill. Others moved to Schulenburg and established businesses when the railroad was built there in 1873.
- Carolyn Heinsohn"