Grimes County Texas map
30.54° N · 95.99° W · County seat: Anderson · 801 sq mi · Central Time
Grimes County keeps its courthouse in Anderson, a town of 191 people — one of the smallest county seats in Texas — while the county's business happens 12 miles west in Navasota. Out in the southeastern corner, near Todd Mission, a permanent 16th-century English village sits empty eleven months a year and fills up every autumn weekend for the Texas Renaissance Festival.
Centered on Anderson. Navasota is west on SH-6; the Navasota River runs down the western county line and the Brazos River clips the southwestern corner.
Where Grimes County sits
The county is on the seam between the Brazos Valley and the Piney Woods, northwest of Houston. Madison County lies north and Walker County northeast; Montgomery County is southeast, Waller County south, Washington County southwest and Brazos County west across the Navasota River.
By straight line from the county center, College Station is 21 miles west, Bryan 24 miles west, Conroe 35 miles southeast, The Woodlands 41 miles southeast and Houston 65 miles southeast. That last figure is what makes the county's southeastern corner a commuting and weekend-property market rather than farmland.
Grimes County was carved out of Montgomery County in 1846 and named for Jesse Grimes, who signed the Texas Declaration of Independence and had settled inside what became the county's boundaries. Loblolly and post oak cover the eastern half; the western half toward the Navasota is open pasture and cropland.
Cities and towns
| Place | Type | 2020 population in county |
|---|---|---|
| Navasota (part) | City | 7,655 |
| Plantersville | City | 464 |
| Bedias | City | 359 |
| Iola | City | 314 |
| Anderson | City (seat) | 191 |
| Todd Mission | City | 121 |
Six incorporated places and none of them large. Navasota crosses the line into Brazos County; its total 2020 city population was slightly above the figure shown here.
Roads
- SH-6 – the main north–south route, entering from Brazos County at Navasota and running southeast toward Hempstead and Houston. Navasota's bypass carries it around the town's east side.
- SH-105 – the east–west route, crossing SH-6 at Navasota and running east through Plantersville toward Conroe and Montgomery County.
- SH-90 – north from Anderson through Roans Prairie and Bedias to the Madison County line.
- SH-30 – crosses the northern part of the county between Brazos County and Huntsville in Walker County.
- SH-249 (Aggie Expressway) – enters the southeastern corner from Montgomery County and ends at SH-105 near Todd Mission, giving the Houston side of the county a controlled-access route toward Tomball.
- Spur 234 and Spur 515 – short connectors at Navasota and Anderson.
Anderson, the courthouse and Fanthorp Inn
Anderson sits on a ridge on the old stage road between Houston and the Brazos crossings. The 1891 Grimes County Courthouse still stands at the top of the hill, and the town below it has stayed small enough that the 19th-century street pattern is intact. Fanthorp Inn, a stagecoach stop built by Henry Fanthorp in the 1830s and now a state historic site, is a block from the square; it is one of the few surviving buildings of its kind in Texas.
Navasota, at the SH-6 and SH-105 crossing, is the county's commercial center and its rail town. The Texas legislature named it the Blues Capital of Texas in recognition of Mance Lipscomb, the songster and sharecropper who lived and is buried there. Downtown Navasota is a National Register historic district of brick storefronts along Washington Avenue.
The Renaissance festival grounds
The Texas Renaissance Festival occupies a permanent site off FM-1774 near Todd Mission, in the far southeastern corner of the county. Unlike a fairground that is struck each year, the grounds are built as fixed timber-framed buildings laid out along lanes, with an adjoining campground that fills on Saturday nights. The festival runs on weekends from late September or early October into late November, and for those weekends the traffic on FM-1774, SH-105 and SH-249 is heavier than anything else the county sees. Todd Mission incorporated in part to manage that load.