Anglo-American settlers began to arrive in the 1830s, and the new town of Palestine was made the county seat with the formation of Anderson County in 1846. Located on a natural boundary between the great pine forests to the east and the rich Blackland Prairie to the west, the town became a market center. The local agricultural economy, based on slave production of cotton, was little affected by the Civil War, and slaves from other southern states were sent to Anderson County and hired for local needs.
After the International and Great Northern Railroad arrived in 1872, development shifted from the courthouse square to the depot’s district. The railroad placed headquarters and workshops in Palestine and platted land north of the tracks. The two competing halves of the town were connected in 1875 by Avenue A, which bridged Indian Creek, forming a diagonal visual and civic axis between the courthouse and the depot (1879, Nicholas J. Clayton; burned in 1922). As the old guard kept their businesses around the courthouse and lived to the north, the new railroad immigrants bought railroad land near the depot and lived south across the tracks.
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