The town site of Wheelock was laid out in 1834 by founder Col. Eleazer Louis Ripley Wheelock (1793–1847), grandson of Dr. Eleazar Wheelock, D.D., the founder of Dartmouth College. It was near Dunn's Fort, an early site for protecting Anglo settlers in Robertson's Colony.[5] Eleazer L. R. Wheelock originally planned to name the community after Texas President Mirabeau B. Lamar, but the community was named after Wheelock, Vermont in 1837. Wheelock was considered as a site for both the Texas state capitol and the University of Texas in the 1830s. Wheelock grew as a cattle ranching and cotton farming community in the 1840s, and it became one of the most well-known towns in Central Texas.[6] A post office was set up in Wheelock in 1846. Wheelock became the county seat of Robertson County in 1850, though it lost that designation to Owensville in 1856. Wheelock began to decline in the 1860s when the railroad bypassed the town; many of its residents moved to Hearne, a nearby community with a railway station. In 2000, the population of Wheelock was estimated to be 225.[6]
