Biohazard Cleanup Near Downtown Calvert Calvert, TX

Calvert is a historic city in Robertson County, Texas, located approximately halfway between Waco and Bryan-College Station at the intersection of State Highway 6 and Farm Roads 979 and 1644.

The town is named for Robert Calvert, a former Texas legislator and planter who established a plantation west of the townsite in 1850 and was the driving force behind getting the Houston and Texas Central Railway to build through the area.

Investors platted Calvert in January 1868, merchants moved in from the nearby communities of Sterling and Owensville, a post office opened that same year, and the first trains arrived in 1869.

Calvert was incorporated in 1870 with an aldermanic form of government, after a first incorporation election in 1869 was set aside and had to be re-run.

In 1870 Calvert replaced Owensville as the county seat of Robertson County, but just nine years later voters moved the seat to nearby Morgan, now named Franklin.

By 1871 Calvert claimed to have the largest cotton gin in the world, and a total of 32,000 bales of cotton were reported received there in 1882.

In 1873 a severe yellow fever epidemic killed between three and four hundred people in Calvert, severely depopulating the town.

By 1884 Calvert had an estimated 3,000 inhabitants, with Presbyterian, Methodist, Baptist, Episcopal, and Catholic churches, public schools, two banks, an opera house, and the weekly Courier newspaper.

Calvert's population peaked at 3,322 in 1900 but then entered a long decline, and the 2020 census counted just 962 people, living in 423 households, with a notably old median age of 48.9 years.

Calvert's 37-block National Historic District preserves a Victorian-era downtown and homes in Queen Anne, Italianate, and Colonial Revival styles, and for more than 35 years the town has enjoyed success as an antiques 'capital.'