The cattle years ran straight into the cotton years. By the 1880s Waco called itself the Cotton Capital of the South, with a grand Cotton Palace fair to prove it — and in 1885, at Morrison's Old Corner Drug Store, a young pharmacist named Charles Alderton mixed up a new fountain drink a full year before Coca-Cola. He called it Dr Pepper, and Waco has been its birthplace ever since; the story is told today in the old brick bottling plant that houses the Dr Pepper Museum.
So the town built a bridge — and not a modest one. The Waco Suspension Bridge opened in 1870: a 475-foot span of nearly three million locally made bricks, hung from cables supplied by the Roebling company of Trenton, the same firm that would build the Brooklyn Bridge. At its debut no single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi was longer. Cattle crossed at five cents a head, wagons and stagecoaches rolled over two abreast, and Waco boomed. The bridge is a pedestrian landmark now, and the bronze longhorns of the ‘Branding the Brazos’ sculpture still drive across the riverbank beside it.
Why People Visit Waco
Waco balances discovery with simple outdoor time. Visitors mix fossils, the historic bridge, and museums with shaded riverfront parks and an easy downtown. It is friendly, curious, and easy to navigate, with year-round appeal in its parks, paths, and public spaces. Frontier Texas and Ice Age deep time sit side by side here — history and everyday culture together in a welcoming way, with relaxed mornings and unhurried afternoons.
