Manor and New Sweden: Rails and the Swedish Prairie

Manor exists because of a railroad. In 1871, as the Houston and Texas Central pushed its line toward the state capital, a local landowner named James Manor deeded the company a two-hundred-foot right-of-way and two hundred acres for a townsite through his property, and the depot town that grew up around the tracks took his name. Cotton, grain, and cottonseed moved out on those rails while a farming county filled in around them — much of it settled by Swedish immigrants who broke the deep blackland prairie soil at New Sweden, Manda, and Lund and raised tall brick churches that still stand on the horizon. This driving tour starts in Manor's historic downtown, threads through its pioneer landmarks and cemetery, then heads northeast across the prairie to the Swedish Lutheran country the town has always leaned on. (Trivia along the way: a few miles south, Manor Downs racetrack once drew forty thousand people to Farm Aid II in 1986 before it closed in 2010 and was sold off for an industrial park — which is why it isn't a stop here.)