A Brief History of Winchester, TX

  Murphy’s Steakhouse, located in Winchester Texas, in the northwest portion of Fayette County near the intersection of FM roads 153 and 448, named for Winchester Tennessee, is on a line of the Southern Pacific Railroad. The area was first settled in 1827 and platted in 1857 and was one of the first settlements in Fayette County.
  A Post Office was established in 1866, which is still in existence and by the 1900 the town had eighteen businesses, which included, a courthouse, two jails (white and black), a bank, two doctors, two drug stores, a hotel, two saloons, a liquor store, a gambling house, two cotton gins, four churches, which are still in existence, two public schools (white and black), a theater, an opera house, three meat markets, a gristmill, a lumber yard, a hardware store, and several merchandise stores.
  As a shipping point on the Waco branch of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway, the community served a wide area of prosperous farms.