 Members of the Peters Colony also settled here in the 1840s.Originally named Gibbs Station, after Barnett Gibbs (one of Texas's first lieutenant governors), the town was renamed in 1892 for George Coppell, a wealthy English financier who came to the United States in the 1880s and was reportedly heavily involved with the final construction of the local railroad line.Popular belief is that he was an engineer, but there is little or no evidence to support that claim.