Rice, Texas

Rice TX

What is going on in Rice, and what has gone on.

This is not the city's website. The City of Rice keeps its own, with the current roster of officials, at ricetx.gov.
Old storefronts with a parapet in Rice, photographed in 2014
Field Note 006  ·  Rice  ·  September 2026
The Haynie Memorial building in Rice

The man the town is named for

A flood moved the settlers, a railroad gave them a station, and the name on the sign belongs to a merchant whose money built a university.

Written by Robert Phipps

People came up here in the late 1860s, some of them out of Porter's Bluff after the river took it in 1866. By 1872 there were about a dozen families inside a four-mile circle. That same year the Houston and Texas Central built through and a post office opened.

The town is named for William Marsh Rice, a Houston merchant who gave land here — the sources disagree on what for. The state's history and the city both say land for a church and a cemetery; one account says a school; another says five hundred acres for a station and a townsite. What is not in dispute is where the rest of his money went: he left it to found the institute in Houston that became Rice University, and was murdered by his own valet and a lawyer in 1900 in the course of a forged will.

Cotton and a gristmill, three general stores, two groceries, a blacksmith, two wheelwrights and a druggist by 1890. A fire in May 1901 took a third of the business district, or nearly half of main street, depending on which account you read. The town incorporated in December 1912, and that same year the interurban electric line from Dallas to Corsicana came through, so for a while you could get on a train in Rice and be in Dallas without changing.

It went down to two hundred and eighty-four people by 1970. Then the interstate arrived and it went the other way — twelve hundred at the last count, four times what it was, and the only town on this list that is bigger now than it has ever been.

Photographed in one day, August 2014, along with an older set from the 2000s.

Getting things done in Rice

Where a thing is not published anywhere, there is a number to call instead.

City Hall

City of Rice
Address305 N. Dallas Street, Rice, TX 75155
Phone903-326-7500
Council6.30 p.m. at City Hall — the city posts dated agendas rather than a fixed day, and recent ones fall on both Tuesdays and ThursdaysCity of Rice
Open

Community information last reviewed 10 September 2026.

The school

Rice ISD is the largest district on this list, and it is not the Rice district down near Wharton.
Rice ISD
1302 SW McKinney Street · 903-326-4287 · rice-isd.org
Three campuses, prekindergarten through twelfth grade, about eleven hundred children. Rice Consolidated ISD at Altair in Wharton County is a different district entirely.
rice-isd.org

The churches

One that publishes an address. The city lists no directory.
First Baptist Church
201 Dallas Street · fbcrice.org
Service times not published.
the church's own website

What the town keeps going

A park with ballfields, a volunteer fire department the town throws a dance for, and its own water supply.
Mike Dickens Memorial Park
No address or hours published.
Walking trails, baseball fields, a concession stand and play areas.
City of Rice
Rice Volunteer Fire Department
No address or telephone published; the department keeps its own page.
The city's Fall Festival and street dance is its fundraiser.
the department's own page
Rice Water Supply
No contact published on the city's page.
A separate utility from the city.
City of Rice

The year

What comes round every year, as the city lists it. No dates are published.
Easter in the Park
Fourth of July fireworks
Fall Festival and street dance
Raises money for the volunteer fire department.
Christmas tree lighting downtown

Rice is one of eight towns on Blackland TX — the record of the small towns on the Blackland Prairie, and of the crossroads between them.