From La Vega Little League that has been providing baseball for area children for more than 60 years to the annual Christmas parade that has been continuous for half a century, Bellmead is a place where tradition is treasured.
• La Vega ISD serves the Greater Bellmead area and offers excellence in education and prepares the leaders of tomorrow.
• The City of Bellmead provides parks and a civic ce
nter for special events.
• Bellmead’s location on Interstate 35 makes access to the amenities of the surrounding area easy and convenient. Bellmead is home to more than 9,900 people who enjoy easy access to Baylor University, Texas State Technical College Waco and McLennan Community College as well as a host of attractions in neighboring Waco. The community began in the mid-1920s, when the Missouri, Kansas and Texas Railroad chose the site for its locomotive shops. Several hundred people were employed at the shops, and families began moving to the area. The first school was called Bellmead in honor of Belle Meade Farms, a prominent horse farm in Tennessee. Area schools were consolidated to form the La Vega Independent School District in 1927. A post office was established at Bellmead in 1937. In the mid-1940s the Bellmead post office was discontinued and replaced by branch service from Waco. Waco Army Air Field (later called James Connally Air Force Base) opened in 1942 just northeast of town. The population was reported at 25 in the early 1940s, but it increased rapidly after World War II, rising to 800 by 1949. The community was reincorporated in 1954 with a mayor-alderman government. By 1960, Bellmead had 5,127 residents and 85 businesses. When the air force base was closed in 1965, Texas A&M University established the James Connally Technical Institute at the facility. Today, Bellmead enjoys proximity to Interstate 35 and the busiest intersection in McLennan County at Loop 340 and Interstate 35. Both homegrown and retail chain businesses are thriving. Convenient to the heart of Downtown Waco and a Big XII University, Bellmead’s hotel and motel industry is vigorous. The Baylor Research and Innovation Collaborative is located on Bellmead’s southern border and promises to be an incubator for new business and research. Baylor’s new stadium is under construction on the banks of the Brazos River, only a couple of miles south of Bellmead.
