Blood, Trauma, and Biohazard Cleanup in Smithville, TX

Smithville was settled in 1827 by Dr. Thomas Jefferson Gazley, who built the first house and opened the first store there and later signed the Texas Declaration of Independence.

The town is named for William Smith, another early settler and storekeeper, and grew up among about seventeen families living on the south bank of the Colorado River.

The railroad arrived in Smithville in 1886-87, and the community of seventeen families moved about two miles west to meet the tracks.

In 1894 the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad established its central shops in Smithville, and the railroad boom made Smithville the largest town in Bastrop County for nearly fifty years.

Smithville incorporated in March 1895, and by 1909 it was the biggest town in the county, shipping cotton to many markets.

The 2020 census counted 3,922 residents in Smithville, a city on the Colorado River about ten miles southeast of Bastrop.

Texas Monthly has called Smithville the 'Best Little Film Town in Texas,' and it was the first Film Friendly Community designated by the Texas Film Commission.

Smithville has served as a filming location for movies including Hope Floats with Sandra Bullock, The Tree of Life with Brad Pitt, and Bernie with Jack Black and Matthew McConaughey.

In December 2006 Smithville baked the world's largest gingerbread man — twenty feet tall and 1,308 pounds — a Guinness World Record recognized in 2008; the record was broken in Norway in 2009, but the gingerbread man, nicknamed 'Smitty' and now a monument made from the original cookie sheet, remains the largest in the United States.

Smithville was designated a Preserve America Community in 2009 and preserves both a Commercial Historic District and a Residential Historic District.