Mart, TX

Mart is a city spread across the McLennan–Limestone county line, eighteen miles east of Waco on State Highway 164. It began as Willow Springs, then grew in the 1880s around two steam gristmills, cotton gins, a church, and two schools. The railroad arrived shortly after 1900, opening wider markets for the cotton and wheat farms around town and giving Mart the trading-town shape it still carries. Mart ISD keeps both its elementary and high school campuses in town. The city’s name is short, but its map has a full Texas small-town arc: springs, mills, cotton, rail, and a school district that still serves the community.