BERTRAM.
Bertram is at the junction of
Farm roads 243 and 1174 and State Highway 29, ten miles west of
Burnet in eastern Burnet County. The town was established in 1882,
when the community of San Gabriel in Williamson County was moved two
miles northwest to the newly constructed Austin and Northwestern
Railroad.
The new community was named for Austin
merchant Rudolph
Bertram, the largest stockholder in
the Austin and Northwestern. A post office opened in 1882, and by
1891 the town had an estimated population of 150, a cotton
gin-gristmill, three general stores, a grocer, a blacksmith, a
shoemaker, and two wagonmakers. After 1900 Bertram was a shipping
point for cotton, cattle, and wool.
In 1928 a record 11,624 bales of
cotton were
ginned in the town. In the early 1930s plummeting cotton prices and
the Great Depression caused the town's population to decline from a
high of 1,000 in 1929 to 550 by 1931. It was 600 in 1949 and by 1966
stood at 1,205. In 1989 the town had a population of 1,002 and
nineteen businesses. At that time Bertram's principal industries
included the manufacture of ceramic floor tiles, paving tiles, marble
fixtures, and vacuum-formed and molded plastic products. In 1990 the
population was 849.
From The Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas:Eakin, 1979).
Tommye Dorbandt Potts
|
BETHEL
Bethel is on Farm Road 963 eight
miles northeast of Burnet in north central Burnet County. A school
was established there in 1869. The settlement was closely linked with
nearby Sage, which had a post office and a store but used the Bethel
school. The school had one teacher and twenty-five students in the
mid-1890s; it closed in 1941, when the area was consolidated with the
Burnet Independent School District. Several houses and a cemetery
marked the community on county highway maps in the late 1940s. Bethel
had a community center and a few scattered houses in 1990.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
Bibliography: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
BRIGGS.
Briggs is at the intersection of
U.S. Highway 183 and Farm Road 2657 in northeastern Burnet County.
The site is part of the Aaron F.
Boyce survey patented to Boyce's
heirs on September 30, 1850. The Boyce land is on the headwaters of
Berry Creek, where a number of permanent springs provided constant
water. Settlers first called the area Springs, then Gum Springs. The
land on which Briggs stands was purchased by Stephen Taylor from W. T. (Bill) Gann,
who came to Texas from Missouri in 1855. Taylor
arrived from Tennessee around 1880. Between 1870 and 1890 many new
settlers arrived from Kentucky, Tennessee, Mississippi, the
Carolinas, Alabama, and other states to establish homes and farms in
this blackland section of Burnet County. Taylor built a cotton gin
and sold it in 1882; he then erected the first general store in the
area that became known as Taylors
Gin.
In 1888 a petition was circulated
among the
citizens and sent to Washington, D.C., requesting a post office for
Taylor's Gin; the request was granted on March 27, 1888. William Hazelwood, a
physician who set up practice in the community,
passed a petition to get the name changed to Briggs, in honor of his
mother-in-law, Mrs. Henry
D. Briggs. The
community was renamed onJune 21, 1898. By 1900 a site had been
platted into lots and blocks, land had been donated for a new school,
and the population had reached 100. Businesses thrived, cotton was
king, and two gins operated in Briggs; the town had doctors, a
drugstore, and two general stores. Telephones and electricity came in
the early 1900s. A bank was chartered in 1909. From 1906 to 1928
business prospered. On April 12, 1906, a tornado demolished the
school. A new building was built, and in 1915 a high school was
organized. The population reached about 300 in the 1920s.
In 1928 devastating fires took their
toll of
homes and businesses, most of which were never rebuilt. The Great
Depression brought on a farming decline; the remaining gin and
businesses closed. With the arrival of U.S. Highway 183 many citizens
began commuting to shop and to work in nearby communities, including
Killeen, Copperas Cove, and Camp Hood (now Fort Hood). Briggs's
population reached its height of 520, served by twenty business, in
1936. The population subsequently fluctuated between 250 and 300
until the late 1960s, when it declined to ninety-six. In 1969 the
Briggs school was consolidated with the Burnet district. In the late
1980s Briggs had two churches, a post office, two service stations,
and scattered residences. The population was ninety-two in
1990.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas:Eakin, 1979). Vertical Files, Barker
Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin.
Estelle Bryson
|
BURNET
Burnet, the county seat of
Burnet County, is one mile west of the divide between the Brazos and
Colorado river watersheds near the center of the county, forty-eight
miles northwest of Austin. In 1849 people on the frontier sought
protection from the Indians at nearby Fort
Croghan. The area was commonly
called Hamilton or Hamilton Valley for John
Hamilton, who
had a league and labor of land there. A creek flowing through the
league was also named for him. The town was founded as Hamilton in
1852, when Burnet County was established. In August of that year a
post office in Hamilton was named Burnet Courthouse. In 1857
thirty-five residents of the town petitioned the state legislature to
change the name of the town to Burnet since there was another town in
Texas named Hamilton. The name was changed in 1858.
A major spurt in growth occurred with
the
arrival of the Austin and Northwestern Railroad in April 1882. Burnet
then became the railhead for the area to the west, including the
Llano, Mason, and San Saba vicinities. On June 3, 1885, Southern
Produce Company shipped 157,000 pounds of wool from Burnet,
reportedly the third largest wool shipment made up to that time in
Texas. In 1885 Gustav
Wilke, subcontractor building the
Capitol in Austin, constructed a narrow-gauge railroad from Granite
Mountain, fourteen miles south of Burnet, to Burnet. At a point just
south of the town and within its city limits, Wilke constructed a
yard to shape, finish, and fit the granite for placement in the
Capitol building. Here some 1,802 railroad carloads, 31,000 tons, of
granite were finished and shipped by the Austin and Northwestern to
Austin. After the railroad was extended to Llano in 1892, Burnet
declined as a supply point and became a farming and livestock
center.
In April 1931 the contract was let for
the
construction of what was then named Hamilton Dam on the Colorado
River ten miles west of Burnet. While this construction was under way
as many as 800 men were employed, and Burnet was home for many of
them and supply base for nearly all of them. Due to the Great
Depression the Insull-owned corporations, including the one owning
Hamilton Dam, failed financially, and work ceased. In 1934 the state
legislature established the Lower Colorado River Authority, which,
financed by the federal Public Works Administration, acquired and
completed the dam and changed the name to Buchanan Dam. Other dams
along the Colorado River soon followed, and Burnet was on a sound
economic path from that time forward.
In 1989 the town had a population of
3,794
and in 1990, 3,423. The community was incorporated in 1933 and in
1990 had a city manager form of government. Burnet produces stone and
various milled products from stone; mining, milling, shipping of
graphite, agribusiness, hunting leases, tourism, and recreation
contribute to the economy. Many retirees live in Burnet.
From: "BURNET, TX." The
Handbook
of Texas Online.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Frank Brown, Annals of
Travis
County and the City of Austin (MS, Frank Brown Papers, Barker Texas
History Center, University of Texas at Austin). Robert C. Cotner, The
Texas State Capitol (Austin: Pemberton Press, 1968). Darrell Debo,
Burnet County History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979). W. P.
Fry, Council Creek Calling (Burnet County Heritage), comp. Juanita
Fry Ragsdale (San Antonio: Naylor, 1976). Joseph Carroll McConnell,
West Texas Frontier (Vol. 1, Jacksboro, Texas, 1933; Vol. 2, Palo
Pinto, Texas, 1939).
Thomas C. Ferguson
Description
of Burnet County, 1874
|
CEDAR
MILL.
Cedar Mill was on the old road
from Austin to Hamilton Valley (now Burnet) near the intersection of
Farm Road 243 and Ranch Road 1174 in Burnet County. The first settler
came in 1854. Alexander
Barton, a miller, ran a sawmill,
gristmill, and flour mill on the south fork of Oatmeal Creek. There
were also merchants and a saddletree maker. The early settlers came
from South Carolina, Missouri, and Illinois. During the 1860s an
Austin-Burnet road was charted on more favorable terrain. This caused
the citizens of Cedar Mill to move in the 1870s to a site north of
the South San Gabriel River, where they called their new settlement
South Gabriel.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Maxine B. Glimp
|
COUNCIL
CREEK.
Council Creek was an early
settlement on Council Creek and what is now Farm Road 2341, ten miles
northwest of Burnet in western Burnet County. Local tradition has it
that the creek and the community were named for a meeting of local
residents trying to settle a difficulty. The meeting was called a
"council of war," but the dispute was settled peacefully. The Council
Creek area was settled about 1856 by several families from Illinois.
By the early 1860s the community had a
grist
and saw mill, a turning lathe, and a leather shop; cedar shingles,
hardwood lumber, and furniture were among the earliest commodities
produced by area residents. The first schoolhouse in the vicinity,
often referred to as Cedar College for the material from which it was
made, also doubled as a church building. In 1896 the Council Creek
school had one teacher and forty students. The school burned before
1912, and a new building had to be built. After being moved to
several different locations, the school was finally consolidated with
the Burnet Independent School District in 1951.
The school and a few houses marked the
community on county highway maps in the 1940s, but by the 1980s the
only evidence of the old settlement was Fry Cemetery. A subdivision
called Council Creek Village was established to the west of the old
Council Creek community site in the early 1960s. Most residents of
Council Creek Village were newcomers to the area, attracted by the
resort facilities offered by Lake Buchanan.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
DOBYVILLE.
Dobyville was near U.S. Highway
281 twelve miles north of Burnet in northern Burnet County. Jacob and Adaline
Wolf and Silas and Rebecca Shelburn were among the first settlers in the 1850s, soon
after Burnet County was established. Mail was delivered to the
community as early as 1858 through a post office called O'Hair's
Hill; when that office was discontinued, the mail was routed through
Naruna or Lampasas.
The Dobyville post office was
established in
1874 with Thomas S. Wolf as postmaster. It closed in
1884 but
reopened under the name Pomona in 1889 and operated until 1900.
Afterward, mail for the community was again sent to Naruna.
Lone Star School at Dobyville was
established in 1878. By the mid-1880s the community had steam grist
and syrup mills, a cotton gin, and thirty residents; cotton,
livestock, and grain were the principal products shipped by area
farmers. In the mid-1890s the school at Dobyville had one teacher and
fifty-six students. The school building also served as a community
center until 1911, when the structure burned. Lone Star School was
consolidated with Lake Victor School in 1921.
Dobyville's big annual entertainment
was the
spring rabbit drive, which took place on a Saturday in late March or
early April; families would gather for a day of hunting and
picnicking. A few scattered houses marked the community on county
highway maps in the 1940s; only a cemetery remained by the
1980s.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
DOUBLE
HORN.
Double Horn was at the
headspring of Double Horn Creek, south of the Colorado River in
Burnet County and fifty to sixty miles northwest of Austin. The town
was formed in 1855 by Jesse
Burnam (or Burnham), Levi Fowler, and
others. The creek and town were reportedly named after an incident in
which a pioneer found the remains of two bucks with interlocked
antlers.
The Francis Chapel or Frog Pond
school, with William H. Holland as its first teacher, was located on the Colorado
River; in 1855 among its students were the children of Noah
Smithwick. The school, later known as the Double Horn School, was
moved near Grid Iron Creek and then to Double Horn Creek. A post
office was established for the community in October 1857, with
Holland as the first postmaster.
In 1884 Double Horn had a population
of
fifty along with the school, a cotton gin, and two churches. By 1896
its population had dropped to twenty-five, and a physician named Yett
practiced there. The Double Horn post office was discontinued in
1911. The cotton gin and gristmill on Grid Iron Creek was later moved
to the junction of Grid Iron and Double Horn creeks. A blacksmith
shop and store were also nearby. The Double Horn school was still
shown on the 1936 county highway map, but all traces of the community
and school were gone by the second half of the twentieth
century.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979). Noah Smithwick, The
Evolution of a State, or Recollections of Old Texas Days (Austin:
Gammel, 1900; rpt., Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983).
Madolyn Frasier and Cyrus Tilloson
|
FAIRLAND
Fairland is on Farm Road 1855
six miles north of Marble Falls in Burnet County. In the early 1850s
a group of families from the eastern states settled on a strip of
level land between Backbone Ridge and the Slaughter range, which they
called "fair land." Early settlers were the R. S. Cates family
in 1852 and the Lewis
Thomas family. Others included John Harvey, a
surveyor,
Jefferson Barton, and
the Atwoods, Grahams, Slaughters,
Joys, Reeds, Alexanders, B. E. Fergusons, and Chessers.
In 1859 Mrs.
Senia Barton Harvey deeded land for
a Methodist church and a school. The settlers soon began work on a
stone building but were stopped by the Civil War, when many of the
men left to fight. The building was not completed until 1870. Rev. Arter Crownover,
a minister of the Methodist Episcopal Church, South,
held the first service, and a school was begun. On July 13, 1872, the
third quarterly Methodist conference for Lampasas, Bear Creek
Circuit, named the house and lot Crownover Chapel. When the church
was finished, the community had a picnic. An extra wooden room was
subsequently added to the rock building and used for the school for
many years.
In 1875 a Christian Church was built
in
Fairland. In 1887 a Church of Christ was built. The congregation
eventually ceased to meet and in 1937 began to meet in homes.
Eventually the members joined with a group in Marble Falls.
The first local post office was opened
in
1874 and called Backbone Valley. The post office named Fairland
opened in 1890 and was discontinued in 1951, when a Marble Falls
rural route served the community. In 1925 Fairland had an estimated
population of 200. By 1939 the number of residents had dropped to
fifty. The population was consistently estimated at fifty through the
mid-1960s. The Fairland and Tobey schools were consolidated in 1937,
and they joined the Marble Falls schools after 1943. The old rock
church building was still maintained by the Fairland community and
interested friends and used for community purposes in the late 1980s.
The Fairland Cemetery located on the seven-acre plot with the
building was also still in use. The earliest grave is dated 1857.
Fairland was still listed as a community in 1990, but without
population statistics.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Estelle Bryson
Sketch
of Fairland, 1899
|
GRANITE
SHOALS.
Granite Shoals is on Lake Lyndon
B. Johnson seven miles west of Marble Falls in southwestern Burnet
County. It takes its name from the granite shoals that were evident
on the Colorado River before the construction of Wirtz Dam and Lake
Granite Shoals (later Lake Lyndon B. Johnson). Granite Shoals was
developed as a lake resort but became an incorporated community in
the 1960s. Its population doubled from 300 in the late 1960s to 634
in the early 1980s and again by 1990 to 1,378.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
HOOVER'S
VALLEY.
Hoover's Valley was a mile east
of the Colorado River and ten miles southwest of Burnet in western
Burnet County. Settlement of the area began in the early 1850s. The
community was named for the Hoover family, who bought a 640-acre
homestead there in 1854. Isaac
Hoover, a Methodist minister, held
services in an oak grove near the local cemetery; when the
meetinghouse was completed it doubled as a school building until land
for a new school was donated in 1872. A post office was established
at Hoover's Valley in 1879 with John
J. Mabry as postmaster, but it was
discontinued in 1881. The Hoover's Valley common school district had
fifty-eight students in 1896 and fifty-six in 1904. It was
consolidated with the Burnet Independent School District in the
1940s. The Buckner Baptist Children's Home began operating a ranch in
the valley in the late 1940s. A school, a few scattered houses, and a
cemetery marked the community on the county highway map in 1948, but
by 1989 these were no longer shown at the site.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas:Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
Gold
in Hoover's Valley
|
JOPPA.
Joppa, on Farm Road 210 and the
North Fork of the San Gabriel River, seven miles northeast of Bertram
in Burnet County, was first called Pool Branch, after a nearby pool
formed by a waterfall. At that pool in the 1880s were a cotton gin
and a mill; just southeast of the gin were a store and a blacksmith
shop.
On August 31, 1881, J. S. and Jane Danford of Delaware County, Iowa, gave two acres of land on
the north bank of the North Gabriel to be held in trust for a school
and a church. The school building was constructed at once and used
for classes and church services. Worship was held in the schoolhouse
until 1913, when a church building was erected. The local school, the
church, and the locality were called Pool Branch until 1891, when the
community secured a post office, and the people agreed on the
Biblical name Joppa. On May 19, 1904, a telephone line was installed
in Joppa. An iron bridge was built across the San Gabriel River in
1907 and was still in use in 1989. The area received electricity in
1939 from the Pedernales Electric Cooperative. The school was
consolidated with the Bertram district in 1942. Friday and Saturday
night socials and Sunday night singings culminated in an annual
picnic as late as the 1930s. The church and school buildings were
still used in the 1980s for church and community activities.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Estelle Bryson
|
|
LAKE VICTOR.
Lake Victor is on Farm Road 2340
ten miles north of Burnet in north central Burnet County. It began as
a railroad camp in 1901 or 1902, when the tracks for the
Burnet-Lampasas section of the Houston and Texas Central Railway were
laid. The community was named for a nearby intermittent artificial
lake that was formed by the removal of dirt for the railroad; the
lake was named for Victor
Kellogg, who served as foreman of
the railroad crew. In 1903 the townsite was surveyed, lots were
offered for sale, a school was established, and a post office was
opened with Frank A.
Ramsey as postmaster. For the next
twenty-five years or so Lake Victor was a prosperous community and
shipping point for area farmers and ranchers. It had three churches,
several businesses, and a population reported at 200 in 1914. The
population was 250 in 1925. Growth did not resume after the Great
Depression and World War II. Although the number of residents
remained stable through the mid-1960s, several key elements of the
community's economic and social focus disappeared. The school at Lake
Victor was consolidated with the Burnet Independent School District
in 1947. The Texas and New Orleans Railroad abandoned the section of
track between Burnet and Lampasas in 1951, thereby depriving Lake
Victor of rail service. The Lake Victor post office was discontinued
in 1957, and mail for the community was sent to Lampasas. The
population was reported at 350 in 1966, but estimates fell to 300 in
1968 and to 200 in 1972. Lake Victor reported a population of 215 in
the 1980s and 1990.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Malvin George Bowden,
History
of Burnet County (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1940). Darrell
Debo, Burnet County History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Maurice C. Shelby, The Lake Victor
Story
(1971).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
MAHOMET.
The name Mahomet has been
associated with two sites in eastern Burnet County. The first was two
miles northeast of the site of Bertram, near the source of Bear
Creek. George Ater, who settled in the area in 1853, named the site for
Mahomet, Illinois. A stage route from Austin to Lampasas was
established in 1855 and passed near Ater's home. Ater's post office
application was granted in 1857, and the office was located in his
home for twenty-five years. In 1882 the Austin and Northwestern
Railroad bypassed Mahomet, and Bertram was established on the
railroad two miles southeast. The Mahomet post office was then moved
to the home of Alex M.
Ramsey in the Sycamore Springs
community, ten miles northeast of Bertram on Farm Road 243 near the
Williamson county line; Sycamore Springs became known as Mahomet. In
1884 Mahomet had a steam cotton gin and corn mill, a school, a
church, and fifty residents. Cotton and wool were the principal
shipments made by area farmers.
Population estimates for the community
rose
to sixty by 1890, but fell to ten by 1896. The post office was
discontinued in 1916, and mail for the community was sent to Bertram.
Forty residents and two businesses were reported at Mahomet in the
late 1930s. Its population rose to seventy-five in the 1960s but fell
to forty-seven by 1974. A church, a community center, and a cemetery
marked the community on county highway maps in the late 1980s, and
the population estimate remained unchanged at forty-seven in
1990.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
MORMON
MILL COLONY.
The abandoned site of Mormon
Mill is on Mormon Mills Road five miles north of Marble Falls and ten
miles south of Burnet in south central Burnet County. A group of
twenty Mormon families led by Lyman
Wight founded the colony in 1851.
Wight's band broke away from the rest of the Church of Jesus Christ
of Latter-Day Saints in protest against Brigham Young's leadership
after founder Joseph Smith died. Wight, who had been a prominent
leader in the church, took his followers to Texas in search of a new
Zion. The Mormons established a colony they called Zodiac near
Fredericksburg on the Pedernales River, but after a flood and heavy
debts drove them out, Wight led the group to a picturesque site on
Hamilton Creek, where they established Mormon Mill Colony.
Many of the Mormons were highly
skilled
artisans; they built a wooden dam and a three-story mill building
with a twenty-six-foot waterwheel, using materials from the
surrounding countryside. Hamilton Creek flowed year-round, providing
power for the grain and sawmills, which served the Burnet, Marble
Falls, and Austin areas. The colonists farmed and hunted, made willow
baskets, spun and wove cloth, and raised gourds for storage of lard
and dried fruit. Mormon Mill, with its population of about 250, also
supported several blacksmiths and skilled furniture craftsmen.
The colony remained apart from the
civic
affairs of the county; Wight and a board of elders were the sole
governing body. Despite the Mormons' industry and ingenuity, the
colony once again incurred heavy debts. Plagued by financial
problems, mounting resentment of their unconventional theology by
local citizens, and frequent Indian raids, the Mormons decided to
move on. In December 1853 Wight led most of the group to Bandera
County. They sold the Mormon Mill property to Noah Smithwick.
Smithwick quickly opened a store and
built a
school for the remaining Mormons who worked at the mill. He also
modified the mill so that only breadstuffs could be processed, thus
prompting local farmers to raise more wheat. A post office opened in
1856; Smithwick's partner and nephew, John
R. Hubbard, was
postmaster.
Smithwick eventually sold out to
Hubbard;
thereafter, the mill passed through several other owners, including Samuel E. Holland, Joshua T.
Moore,
and Price Kinser. The mill continued
operation, but as new mills opened in the area business gradually
declined. The population dwindled until the post office closed in
1875.
In 1901 the mill closed down, and one
year
later the flume and several surrounding buildings burned. Local
farmers tore down the remaining mill buildings and used some of the
materials for construction of a nearby barn. Finally in 1915 the
remaining abandoned residences burned. In 1936 the state erected a
historical marker at the mill site. The only traces of Mormon Mill
left in the 1980s were a few building foundations and the Mormon
cemetery.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Ida Babcock-Hall,
"Memories of
Mormon Mill," Frontier Times, July 1941. T. Lindsay Baker, Ghost
Towns of Texas (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986). J.
Marvin Hunter, ed., The Lyman Wight Colony in Texas (Bandera, Texas:
Frontier Times Museum, 1952). Heman H. Smith, The Lyman Wight Colony
in Texas (MS, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at
Austin). Noah Smithwick, The Evolution of a State, or Recollections
of Old Texas Days (Austin: Gammel, 1900; rpt., Austin: University of
Texas Press, 1983). Levi Lamoni Wight, Reminiscences (MS, Barker
Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin).
Lea Anne Morrell
|
NARUNA.
Naruna is on Farm Road 1478
eighteen miles northwest of Burnet and three miles south of the
Lampasas county line in northwestern Burnet County. A post office was
established there in 1878 with William
M. Spitler
as postmaster. The name Naruna was suggested by Spitler in honor of
the ship that had brought him to Texas. In 1884 Naruna had three
churches, a school, and 150 residents; cotton and livestock were the
principal products shipped by area farmers.
The initial growth of the community
was
stunted in the later 1880s, however; population estimates fell to
twenty-five by 1890. It is possible that the completion in 1885 of
the Lampasas-Brownwood section of the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe
Railway, which bypassed Naruna to the north, prompted residents to
move to towns on the railroad. The population in Naruna rose to
seventy-five by 1892, but the community did not recover its earlier
prosperity. The post office was discontinued in 1906, and mail for
Naruna was sent to Lampasas. The population was ten in 1933,
forty-five in the mid-1940s, and seventy-five in the mid-1960s; it
was reported at forty-five from the 1970s to 1990. The Naruna school
was consolidated with the Lampasas schools in 1944.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
OAKALLA.
Oakalla is at the confluence of
Rocky Creek and the Lampasas River, off U.S. Highway 183 in far
northeastern Burnet County. The first settlers arrived in the area in
the 1850s. Oakalla officially came into being on May 19, 1879, when
its post office was opened. By 1881 the community had a cotton gin, a
drugstore, a blacksmith shop, a general store, and a doctor; by 1890
it included Baptist and Methodist congregations, a cotton gin, a
gristmill, eight other businesses, and a population of 100.
The
settlement supported fourteen businesses by 1896, and its population
had risen to 175. Schools in the area were private until a
cooperative was built with classrooms on the second floor. The
two-acre school site was deeded in 1890. The school also functioned
as a place of worship until 1908, when the Oakalla Baptist Church
erected a meetinghouse. Methodists met in the schoolhouse until March
1923, when C. W.
Tedder and his mother, Mary, deeded land for
a Methodist church; it was
constructed in 1925. Both churches were still active in 1990.
In 1920
the wooden school building was torn down, and a two-room structure
was built of stones from the old Rock School on Gregory Branch. In
1929 two more rooms were added. The Oakalla post office was
discontinued sometime after 1930. In 1946 Oakalla high school
students were transferred to Briggs, and in 1956 the elementary
students followed. The local district was consolidated with that of
Lampasas in 1958.
Oakalla's population was estimated at
180 in 1925
and at 250 in 1931, when ten local businesses were in operation. From
1940 to 1970 the population level hovered around 100, then decreased
to forty-five by the late 1980s. In 1990 Oakalla had a general store
and a population of forty-five, and the 1920 school building was in
use as a community center and county library branch.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Juanita Parsons
|
OATMEAL.
Oatmeal, Burnet County's
second-oldest town, is on Farm Road 243 eight miles southeast of
Burnet in southeast Burnet County. A German family reportedly named Habermill came into
the area in 1849 and spent a season or two
in the vicinity of the headspring of the stream now known as Oatmeal
Creek. The town name is either an alteration of the name of a Mr.
Othneil, who owned the first gristmill in the area, or a supposed
translation of the name Habermill (Haber is a German dialect word for
Hafer, "oats").
An Oatmeal post office was established
in
1853, and the first schoolhouse was built in 1858. A second school,
marked by a state historical marker and still used as a church in
1990, was erected in 1869. The first orchard in the county was
located in the community, and the first and only cheese press in the
county operated there. A gin built by George
Naguler in
the 1870s served as a local landmark until 1907, and the community at
one time had a general store. A cemetery plot was deeded in 1871,
though burials had occurred there as early as 1854.
After the Civil War a colony of former
slaves settled in the eastern part of Oatmeal. They built homes along
a straight lane, constructed a building for use as a church and
school, and established the only all-black cemetery in the county.
The settlement, known as Stringtown (among other names), ceased to
exist by the 1920s.
In 1936 state highway maps showed a
school,
two churches, and scattered dwellings at the townsite. In 1990
Oatmeal had ten farming and ranching families, a church, a community
center, and a cemetery and celebrated an annual Oatmeal Festival with
neighboring Bertram. The population was recorded as twenty.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Burnet County
Historical
Commission and Burnet County Heritage Society, Burnet County Cemetery
Records, 1852-1982 (Austin: Eakin Press, 1988). Darrell Debo, Burnet
County History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Maxine B. Glimp
|
PLEASANT
VALLEY.
Pleasant Valley was a small
rural community located in southern Burnet County three miles east of
Marble Falls on Farm Road 1431. It was settled after the Civil War. Andrew Jackson Kinser
operated a gin at Pleasant Valley, but the local
school was the focal point of the community. The Pleasant Valley
school district was consolidated with the Marble Falls Independent
School District in 1948. The school and several scattered houses
marked the community on county highway maps in the late 1940s, but a
cemetery was all that remained by the late 1970s.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
PRAIRIE
POINT.
Prairie Point was four miles
east of Bertram in eastern Burnet County, near the Williamson county
line. A school, established in 1882, and a Baptist church, organized
the following year,shared a building at Prairie Point and served as
the primary focus of the community. The school closed in 1921, and
area children began attending school in Bertram; the church continued
in operation until 1957, at which time the building was sold. The
church and a few scattered houses marked the community on county
highway maps in the 1940s, but by the 1980s nothing remained.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
PROVIDENCE.
Providence was a small rural
community located in central Burnet County between Burnet and
Bertram. According to local sources, Providence was named for a
community in Alabama, which had been named for Providence, Rhode
Island.
The focus of the community was a
one-room
schoolhouse which was built in the mid-1870s on the south bank of the
Russell Fork of the San Gabriel River. In the 1890s the school had
one teacher and forty-five students. A new school was built in 1923,
and a room was added in 1929. The school was consolidated with the
Bertram Independent School District in 1939.
County highway maps showed a few
scattered
houses in the area in the 1940s, but the community was not labeled,
and no population estimates were available. No evidence of the
community appeared on county highway maps in the 1980s.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
SAGE.
Sage was on the North Fork of
the San Gabriel River at the intersection of the old Burnet-Lampasas
road and the old Austin-San Saba road, eight miles northeast of
Burnet in north central Burnet County. It may have taken its name
from the sage grass in the area. Families from South Carolina,
Mississippi, and Kentucky settled there before 1860.
A Sage post office was established in
1874
with Jesse G. W.
Howard as postmaster. Sage had no
school of its own, but it was close enough to Pleasant Hill and
Bethel that children from Sage could attend school in one of those
communities. In 1884 Sage had three churches, a general store, a
steam corn mill and cotton gin, and seventy-five residents; cotton,
pecans, wool, and hides were the principal shipments made by area
farmers. The post office was discontinued from 1884 to 1898, during
which time mail for the community was sent to Sunny Lane. By 1900
Sage had 242 residents. Shortly thereafter, however, the community
began to decline, possibly because the Houston and Texas Central
Railway bypassed Sage in 1903.
The store remained open until about
1918,
and the gin operated until 1929; only a few scattered houses marked
the community's location on county highway maps by the 1940s, and no
evidence of Sage appeared on maps in the 1980s.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
SHADY
GROVE.
Shady Grove is a rural community
on Farm Road 1174 nine miles northeast of Burnet in east central
Burnet County. The site, where the old Austin-Lampasas and
Burnet-Belton roads crossed the Middle San Gabriel River, was settled
first in the 1850s and 1860s. The settlement was known as Russell
Gabriel in the 1850s, then Middle Fork of the Gabriel, and finally
Shady Grove, for the grove of live oak trees where the school and
cemetery were located.
During the 1870s the community had a
store
and a blacksmith shop. At an early date a cotton gin and corn mill
were established on the creek in Alex
Barton's pasture. In 1896 the J. H. Kleen family
moved from Williamson County and built a gin
near the crossroads. Kleen also helped build the two church buildings
in the community. Robert E. Lee Masonic Lodge was chartered in 1875
and met upstairs in the Norton
Moses home until 1878, when it was
moved into the floor above the school. The lodge continued until
1920.
Early-day settlers were William Wilkinson
(1852), Alexander
Russell (1860), Norton Moses, Robert Lastley,
Orange P. Prentess, Taylor Stanley, and A. C. Null (1860s). The post office for Shady Grove was called
Tamega. In 1877 A. M.
Barton deeded to the Russell Gabriel
community land for a school, church, and cemetery.
The Strickling Baptist Church became
the
Shady Grove Baptist Church in 1907 and met until 1958. The Cumberlain
Presbyterian Church was organized in 1878 and continued active until
1966, when the membership transferred to the Bertram Presbyterian
Church. Strickling School opened in 1869 two miles north on the North
San Gabriel; it changed its name to Shady Grove School in 1877 and
operated until it was consolidated with the Bertram school in 1942.
In 1958 a homecoming was planned, and
a
cemetery association was formed. In 1968 the association secured
title to the land and buildings at the community center, which is
used for group meetings as well as a homecoming each year.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Estelle Bryson
|
SHOVEL
MOUNTAIN.
Shovel Mountain is six miles
south of Marble Falls and three miles west of U.S. Highway 281 in
southern Burnet County. The site was settled in the mid-1850s and
supposedly received its name shortly after the Civil War when an
early settler found a shovel at the summit of a nearby hill.
A post office was established at
Shovel
Mountain in 1869 with Mrs. Ottilie
Giesecke as postmistress. The
population was estimated at forty in 1884, at sixty in 1890, and at
seventy-five in 1892; sheep ranching was the primary occupation of
area residents, and wool and cotton were the principal shipments.
Around 1900 the community began to decline. The post office was
discontinued in 1905, and mail for area residents was sent to Marble
Falls.
When the school was consolidated with
the
Marble Falls Independent School District in 1949, the Shovel Mountain
community lost its primary focus. The school and a few scattered
houses marked the location on county highway maps in the 1940s, but
by the 1980s these no longer appeared.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas:Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
SMITHWICK.
Smithwick is on Farm Road 1431
eight miles east of Marble Falls in southeastern Burnet County. It
was formed by the merging of three smaller communities-Hickory Creek,
Elm Grove, and Smithwick Mills. The Hickory Creek community, which
had a church and a school, was established in the early 1850s. Elm
Grove was a school community near Post Oak Creek, just west of
Hickory Creek. Smithwick Mills, so named for the mill built
by Noah Smithwick in the 1850s, was two miles west of Hickory Creek.
A post office was established at
Smithwick
Mills in 1871 with Thomas A.
Stinnett as postmaster.
The name was changed to Smithwick in
1882,
although the school district was known as Hickory Creek until at
least the mid-1920s. Smithwick reached its peak in the mid-1880s,
when it had a water-powered gristmill, a church, a school, and 150
residents; cotton was the principal shipment made by area
farmers.
The number of residents declined
rapidly
after the completion in 1889 of the Marble Falls extension of the
Austin and Northwestern Railroad a few miles to the west. The
population fell to fifty by 1890 and to twenty-five by 1892. The post
office was discontinued in 1926, and mail for the community was sent
to Marble Falls. The number of residents remained at thirty through
the 1930s and 1940s. A school, a church, and several scattered houses
marked the community's location on county highway maps. The Smithwick
school was consolidated with the Marble Falls Independent School
District in 1951. In the 1980s Smithwick had a church, a community
center, and a cemetery.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Malvin George Bowden,
History
of Burnet County (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1940). Darrell
Debo, Burnet County History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin,
1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
SOUTH
GABRIEL.
South Gabriel, two miles
southeast of Bertram in eastern Burnet County, was first called
Lewiston, for Thomas
Lewiston, local store owner and
later postmaster. When the post office was granted in 1871, however,
the name South Gabriel was chosen because of the community's location
on the South Fork of the San Gabriel River. In 1880 South Gabriel had
thirty-nine residents, served by a church and a school as well as two
stores, a hotel, a saloon, a cotton gin, and several other
businesses. When the Austin and Northwestern Railroad Company was
planning its Austin-to-Burnet route, residents of South Gabriel
offered a $3,000 incentive to build through their town; the company
declined the offer, however, and bypassed South Gabriel by about two
miles. Many residents moved their homes and businesses to the new
town of Bertram on the railroad, and in 1882 the South Gabriel post
office was moved to Bertram. The South Gabriel School was maintained
for several years, but most local children began attending classes in
Bertram; enrollment at the South Gabriel School fell from sixty in
1896 to thirteen in 1904. In 1907 the school was moved farther south
and its name was changed to Midway School. A few houses were shown on
1940s county highway maps of the area, but in the 1980s only a
cemetery marked the townsite.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Mary Starr Barkley, A
History
of Central Texas (Austin: Austin Printing, 1970). Darrell Debo,
Burnet County History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
SPICEWOOD.
Spicewood is a mile north of
State Highway 71 and nine miles southeast of Marble Falls in
southeastern Burnet County. It was probably named for the spicewood
timber on nearby Little Cypress Creek. A post office opened at
Spicewood in 1899 with James B.
Pangle as postmaster.
Nearby communities, such as Corwin,
Clover,
and Rockvale in southern Burnet County and Haynie Flat in western
Travis County, began using the Spicewood post office; as these small
communities declined in the late nineteenth and early twentieth
centuries, many of their residents turned to Spicewood as the focus
of community life.
In 1919 Spicewood replaced Rockvale as
the
official name of the local school district. By the mid-1920s the
community had about 100 residents; that number had risen to 125 by
1933. Spicewood businesses prospered when Farm Road 93 (later State
Highway 71) was built through the area in the 1940s; several
businesses and scattered houses marked the community on county
highway maps at that time. In 1949 the school at Haynie Flat was
consolidated with the Spicewood district; Spicewood in turn was
consolidated with the Marble Falls Independent School District in
1952. The population of Spicewood fell to 100 by 1970. It was
reported as 110 from 1974 to 1990.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
SPRING
CREEK.
Spring Creek was five miles west
of Burnet in western Burnet County. A few settlers arrived in the
area in the 1850s, but the threat of Indian raids delayed community
development until the late 1860s; once the Indians were driven
farther west, settlement proceeded more rapidly. A school was
established in the 1870s; by the mid-1890s the Spring Creek district
had fifty-two students and one teacher. Church services were held in
the school building, and summertime camp meetings took place in brush
arbors.
The school burned in 1919 and again in
1924;
the district was consolidated with the Burnet Independent School
District in 1941. Without the school to serve as a community focus,
the population gradually dispersed, and the land was given over to
ranching. The Spring Creek community was not marked on county highway
maps in the 1980s.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
STRICKLING.
Strickling was on the North Fork
of the San Gabriel River on Farm Road 1174 eight miles northwest of
Bertram in northeast central Burnet County. John Webster
received a land grant on the Charles
Cavenah survey, but when his party
arrived in the area in 1839, they were attacked by Comanches. The men
in Webster's group were killed, and his wife and two children were
captured and held for several months.
In 1852, Webster's daughter Martha claimed his
land as his sole heir, and the next year
she married Marmaduke
Strickling (sometimes spelled
Strickland or Stricklinge). The developing settlement took that name.
The community became a regular stage stop on the Austin to Lampasas
route, and a post office was established in 1857. A school, a church,
and several businesses prospered during the years that the town was
on a major transportation route, but in the 1880s a decline began.
The Austin and Northwestern Railroad
bypassed Strickling in 1882, and
when the stage line was discontinued later that decade, the town lost
much of its vitality. Its population was reported as sixty in 1884
and in 1890, but by the mid-1890s its post office had been
discontinued, and most of its residents had moved away. By 1900 the
last store had closed. A cemetery was all that marked the site on
county highway maps in the 1980s.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas:Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
TOBEY.
Tobey was off Farm Road 1431
near the Southern Pacific line and six miles from Marble Falls in
southwestern Burnet County. It began in the early 1870s and was named
for two brothers, Samuel J. and Avery
Tobey. On March 26, 1875, the Tobeys
and James Boyles deeded land to John
M. Wood, John Climer, and N. J. Smith,
trustees for the Christian Church, to build a church
and school. On October 8, 1887, the Tobeys deeded the land to
trustees of the Tobey schoolhouse, with the stipulation that it be
used by the Church of Christ for religious services and for
education.
By 1937 the Tobey congregation had
stopped
meeting, though possibly some of its members had changed their place
of worship to nearby Fairland. That congregation by 1944 had moved to
Marble Falls; eventually the Tobey building was torn down and moved
there. The Tobey school was in Burnet County school district no. 17;
its building was near the Tobey Cemetery. The school district was
consolidated with neighboring Fairland district #18 in 1937, and in
1944 with Marble Falls. All that remains of the old Tobey community
is the cemetery, which bears a Texas Historical Commission marker.
The cemetery was begun in March 1872, when N. W. Tobey, son of Samuel J. and Martha E.
Tobey, was buried there. In the
1980s it was still in use. A cemetery association was established in
1964 for its preservation.
from the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979). Darrell Debo
|
WATSON
Watson, sometimes called
Watson's Store, is at the intersection of U.S. Highway 183 and Farm
Road 963 eighteen miles northeast of Burnet in northeastern Burnet
County. It was named for Ed
Watson, a local storeowner. A school
was established near Watson in 1879; the Pleasant Hill, or Red Bud
School, was built in the area in 1908. It was consolidated with the
Briggs district in the 1930s. A church, a cemetery, and a few
scattered houses marked the community on county highway maps in the
1940s and the 1980s.
From the Texas
Handbook Online
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet
County
History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
|
