About this tour
Chappell Hill was founded in 1849 by Mary Elizabeth Haller, one of the few Texas towns laid out by a woman, and it grew into a genteel plantation-country community with churches, a female college, and stagecoach traffic on the Houston-to-Austin road. Much of that 19th-century townscape still stands, its Greek Revival lines earning it a place on the National Register. In spring the surrounding hills turn blue with bluebonnets, and the town throws a festival to celebrate them. This short loop threads the historic main street, from the stagecoach inn to the old churches and the museum that keeps the story.