Golinda, TX

Golinda is a city on U.S. Highway 77 at the boundary of Falls and McLennan counties, south of Waco. The community grew around a stagecoach stop between Marlin and Waco, with a post office from 1860 to 1902 and early ties to the Brazos River. The 2020 census counted 618 residents. Its name honors Ignacio Galindo, a priest who received an eleven-league land grant in 1833.

Golinda's history includes farming and church life alongside a painful record of racial violence. Sank Majors, a Black resident of the Golinda area, was seized from the Waco jail and lynched by a white mob in 1905 after a conviction was set aside for a new trial; he was buried at Majors Chapel Cemetery near Golinda. Golinda Baptist Church dates to 1873, the water-supply cooperative began operating in 1957, and the city incorporated in 1973. Farming and ranching remain important around the highway town, with the county line dividing its school service between Chilton and Robinson.