The town of Santa Anna can well boast of one of the most beautiful locations in Texas, for back of the town rise twin peaks which are visible for many miles in all directions.  Comanche Indians lived in this area, and one of their chiefs, Santa Anna, camped with his band at the springs near the foot of the mountains and used the elevated peaks as lookout and signal points.  The peaks were named for Santa Anna, who died about 1849 of cholera, which had been contracted from the whites.  Early surveyors used the mountains in running their lines, and after Camp Colorado was established, scouts were sent to the mountains, which were used as lookout points.

In 1877, J. C. Walton, his wife, Louisa. several small children, and his mother, Susan Hardin Stith Walton, came to Turkey Water, a stage stand operated by W. W. Hunter, a few miles northeast of the mountains.  They built a cabin on Mud Creek, put in a stock of goods for sale, and spent the winter.  They were not far from the stage stand and Walton soon realized that if he were farther away and on a different trail, he could sell more goods.  He looked west along the stage line and turned south along a cattle trail which came through the gap of the Santa Anna Mountains, and there he found several springs of good water, plenty of grass and wood and wild game; so there he moved his cabin.  There was no store on this trail nearer than Trickham.

This story differs from the one which follows.  A man named W. C. Brooks came from Hood County in 1877, and settled on Sweetie Creek, five miles south of the mountain.  The first house ever built at the mountain was owned by Duke Jackson, just west of the gap.  A little east of the gap was a house near a spring of fine water, where a relative of Jackson’s, a Mr. Simpson, lived, and a family named Atterbury also lived not far away.  In 1878, the Brooks family moved to the mountain and bought out “a little store which a Mr. Walter of Brown County had built in the gap.  Lewis Taylor built a house near us and put in a little stock of groceries.”  W. C. Brooks and his wife had both been born in 1831 in Illinois; their children were Henry (1851), Nan (1853), Richard (1855), Emily (Mrs. Lewis Taylor) (1856), Frank (1859), Calvin (1865), Charlie (1868), and Joseph (1875).  Coming before long to this settlement was Henry Brown, with his wife and two small children, and in their little house in a lean-to at the back.  They also opened a store.  W. J. and Tom Crosby, brothers came late in 1879 and bought out Lewis Taylor, who the put up a log house farther west, south of the mountain.  Along with W. C. Brooks to the Walton store came romance.  Emma Jane Walton was soon married to a son of Brooks.  Besides Emma Jane, the other Walton children were Hugh, who married Nora Hasty, Susan (Mrs. Duke Herring), Martha (Mrs. Franklin Rutledge), Ida May (Mrs. Gordon Martin), and the twins, Lula and Julia, who married John Swanson and Henry Blacheley Wilson.  Several of the Walton family are buried at Mukewater Cemetery in Brown County.

By the time the Crosbys came, it was felt that they had a real town, with all the housing facing east or west along the cattle trail which ran through the gap.  Though the Military Road was about three miles east, many times the mounted troopers and the wagons of supplies or foot-soldiers came to the “Gap” to buy tobacco or other needs.  In April of 1879, J. C. Walton was granted a post office and became the first post master of Santa Anna.  Coming soon to the new town were Miles and Joe Frank Wofford, who had a herd of sheep on Mud Creek before owning a store in Santa Anna.  Just out of medical school was a young doctor, J. P. Mathews, who cooked and slept in the back of his office until he married Miss Emma Chambers.  Another early day store was run by Al Taylor and Charley Shaw.  They sold out to Henry Brown, who after a few years, traded his interests to the Crosby brothers.

In the early 1880’s, W. C. Brooks built a hotel.  It had two large rooms in front with a long shed room across the back.  The guest list of the Brooks Hotel included, besides Mathews and the Woffords, Jack Babington, an Englishman who was a younger son of a noble family and received a monthly remittance from them, and who later became a banker in Coleman.  Then there were W. L. Day, stockman and farmer, Charlie Spann, who became the editor of the Santa Anna News, W. B. Brannan, who opened the first livery stable, and J. D. Simpson, who became a prosperous gin man; Albert and Jim Reed stayed at the hotel, as did Caleb Grady and John and Henry Brown.  W. C. Brooks died in 1885 and land was given by his son, Lewis, for the cemetery; Brooks was the first buried there.  Mrs. Brooks sold the hotel to George H. Harrison, who ran it until the summer of 1886, when he moved it near the railroad site.  The main population of the town at that time were prairie dogs which could be seen in almost every direction.  Their continuous barking could be heard at all times.

In 1886, the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railroad extended their lines westward from Temple, and in May of that year, town lots were sold in Santa Anna.  Some of the little stores were moved from the gap down near where the railroad tracks would be, and as the grading for the system went on, with its hundreds of teams with plows, Fresnos, wagons, and supply wagons, there were many dozens of small camps along the route, and many men of all types.  Then came the wagons with the crossties, the worktrain backing along with the rails to be unloaded along the ladderlike row of ties.  A man named Walker bought Harrison’s Hotel and had many wagonloads of lumber hauled to a site he had bought, just a block from where the depot was to be, and had a new two-story hotel built.  The first railroad station agent was L. V. Stockard; there had been no time to put up a depot, and Stockard used a box car for his office.  Merchants coming almost by the time the trains came were Miles Wofford, who has been mentioned, W. R. Kelley, Sam Phillips, the Hunter brothers, and L. L. Shield.  Con Rowland published the first edition of the Santa Anna News, in a dugout.  Early doctors were Newt Long, Jason Tyson, and T. M. Hayes, all of whom practiced for many years.  They were first to have automobiles, but using a horse during rainy weather.

Some other early Santa Anna families were John Parker, W. C. Kilgore, Mack Kilgore, J. D. Simpson, Sam H. Phillips, the druggist, C. M. Grady, and Calvin Holmes.  B. H. Melton was superintendent of construction and he and his family moved to Santa Anna with the railroad in 1886.  When the railroad was completed to San Angelo, Melton was given a position there and moved with his family.  He was later appointed Road Master with headquarters at Santa Anna.  When they returned to Santa Anna, they bought out the Walker Hotel and furnished meals for the railroad employees and passengers.  The Melton Hotel was the principal hotel of the town for a number of years.  In 1917, it was moved a block north to make room for the bank being erected there.

Miles Wofford had a store and Willie Hunter a barber shop.  L. W. Hunter had a meat market under a live oak tree.  Mr. Sampson had a store near where the First National Bank building now is.  The cemetery at that time was near where the Methodist Church now is, but was later moved to its present location.  The town water supply was furnished from the McGonnagill tank, the purchasers paying 25 cents per barrel for it.  Later, two wells were dug.

L. V. Stockard, the depot agent, soon built a nice two-story rock store at a corner just a block from the railroad station.  W. R. Kelley had a general store across the street, but he moved into the new store and was there for some years.  Charlie Hunter put in a drug store there later, with mahogany shelving and wrought iron ice cream furniture.  The upper floor was an assembly hall, being called the Opera House, with a stage and dressing rooms, and many were professional troupes, while others were home talent productions.  The lower floor has had many businesses.

Down on the east corner of this same block, M. Tyson had a dry goods business for a long time, and he also opened his own bank on one side of his store.  L. L. Shield, the merchant from Trickham, moved his operations to Santa Anna, and as fast as he got one business going, he put up another building and started another, directing every one of them himself, and making a success of the all.  S. J. Pieratt, a farmer and school teacher, came to Santa Anna from Williamson County, farming north of the mountain first, then south of town, and then opened a grocery and furniture store.  He was later county judge and went into the real estate business in Coleman.  L. O. Rendleman arrived south of Santa Anna with three of his sons, Luther, Eph, and Charlie, and a daughter Elizabeth, who married Tom McAllister.  Eph owned the first thresher in the area, steam powered, and one of the first automobiles in Santa Anna.  Col. Weaver bought large ranch north of the mountains, but built a home Santa Anna.  Of his children, Allison founded and operated the telephone system; Burgess went into banking; Era was teacher until her marriage to a popular dentist, A. Strozier; Ernest operated the family ranch for years, and there were other children.  Santa Anna displayed feeling for the part Texas Rangers have played in history when a twenty acre block of land at the east end the hills was named Texas Ranger Park, in 1936.

In 1880, John W. Parker and family settled between the two mountains and later purchased 200 acres of land.  The glass industry in Coleman County had its beginning in 1910, when Parker found the sand deposits in the mountains to be 98.5% pure silica.  The first shipment sand was made in 1911.  In 1930, local men of Santa Anna conceived the idea of building a glass factory of their own.  This was called the Texas Glass Company and they purchased a plant from Oklahoma.  By August 1931, the plant was in operation twenty-four hours a day and employed 60 men.  The factory produced 52,000 bottles daily and specialized in making milk bottles, but in addition, bottles for vinegar and beer were made.  In 1932, more capital was needed and a loan was secured.  Being unable to repay, Austin and Fort Worth capitalists took over the plant and the Knape-Coleman Glass Works was organized with A. S. Coleman as president.  In 1934, automatic feeders were installed.  Coleman was sued by the Hartford-Empire Company for patent infringement.  He settled, receiving $10,000 in cash and a six month’s license, at the end of that time he was to ship his bottle machines to Hartford-Empire.  Coleman continued to run the factory, making milk bottles by hand.  He sold the plant in 1936, and Pete Peterson became manager.  The business was then sold to the Liberty Glass Company for $50,000.00.  The glass industry remained at a standstill until 1945, when George Johnson purchased part of the west mountain owned by Parker interests.  Through the efforts of Johnson and other men of Santa Anna, H. L. Markland erected a processing plant at the east end of the west mountain.  The Santa Anna Silica Sand Company was organized with Markland as president, and by February 1946, the first shipments of sand were made.  The sand was shipped to factories at Waco, Palestine, Dallas, Wichita Falls, Texas and Monterey, Mexico.  The Santa Anna Silica Sand Company closed in 1964.

The first tornado of record in Coleman County struck the southeast edge of Santa Anna on March 31, 1892.  A family came into the little town a day or so before and found a house to stay in, as several of the members were sick, probably of pneumonia.  Head of the family was a middle-aged widow named Bass; her son-in-law and daughter, named Story, some small children, including two little boys and two girls, and an orphan grandson.  The three young men were among the sick, and the family had very little money or food.  In the storm, five houses were completely demolished, and only one of the houses was occupied, the one in which the Bass family was staying.  Of that one, the walls and roof were blown off and carried away; only the floor was left, and that had been tilted and moved.  One of the men had died late in the day, the son-in-law named Story, and his body had been left lying on the death-bed.  The storm left the bed and body undisturbed.  One of the Bass sons was blown into a tree and killed.  The young girl had a leg broken in two places, and the smaller girl was so bruised by flying debris that almost all the skin was taken from her body.  The only ones not injured were the two little boys, who were found under the tilted floor of the house.

The town was incorporated in 1906 and the water system established in 1910.  Natural gas was piped in from Trickham in 1914.  The Sealy Hospital was built in 1917 and the nurses home in 1928.

Today (1983) the city of Santa Anna is governed by the mayor-council form, with 5 councilmen.  There is one full time policeman, one justice of the peace, and a municipal judge.  Electrical power is supplied by the West Texas Utilities Company and gas by the Lone Star Gas Company.  The fire department is made up of 20 volunteers, which have 2 pumpers, with tankers for rural fires, 1 foam truck and 1 emergency carrier.  Water is supplied from 2 city-owned lakes and from Lake Brownwood, with a maximum system capacity (daily) of 750,000 gallons and maximum daily use of 410,000 gallons.  Industries in Santa Anna are Art Fabrics and Warnock Machine Company.  The town now has 27 Dunn and Bradstreet rated businesses and the current estimated population is 1469.

Mayors over the years are: S. J. Pieratt (1906-1908), E. E. Polk (1908-1910), W. B. Woodward (1910.1913), W. F. Holland (1913-1915), Lewis A. Robertson (1915-1917), S. H. Phillips (1917), S. W. Childers (1917-1920), F. C. Woodward (1920-1921), J. O. Martin (1921.1924), W. E. Baxter (1924-1928), G. W. Faulkner (1928-1929), W. E. Baxter (1929-1933), Leman Brown (1933), W. E. Baxter (1933-1935), E. D. McDonald (1935-1937), Leman Brown (1937-1939), Geo. M. Johnson (1939-1949), J. Edd Bartlett (1949), F. Z. Payne (1949-1951), Jesse K. Barton (1951), C. E. Flint (1951-1953), Charles M. Henner (1953-1955), W. Tilden Jones (1955-1957), W. F. Barnes (1957-1969), Thomas Wristen (1969-1976), Glen Copeland (1976-1979), Thomas M. Hays (1979-1981), and Wm. Ed Hartman (1981-present).