Settlers began arriving at this site in the late 1860s, mostly from the nearby settlement of Porter's Bluff after it was devastated by a flood in 1866. By 1872, the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, which bypassed Porter's Bluff, was routed through this site. One of the railroad's principal investors, Houston businessman William Marsh Rice (1816-1900), donated five hundred acres of land for a station and a townsite, which was named in his honor, and the Rice Post Office was established in 1872. Cotton was the area's main crop and accounted for much of the community's business interests; one of the first businesses was a cotton gin, and the Rice Railroad Station became a major cotton shipping point. A train carrying Spanish-American War recruits came through the station in 1898, and the Liberty Bell passed through on a World War I Liberty Bond campaign. Early settlers included Isaac Sessions, who arrived in 1846; Texas Revolutionary War veteran Joseph Calloway Bartlett, Rice's first postmaster; and many Civil War veterans. The community's first school opened in 1875, and citizens voted to incorporate the city in a December 1912 election.