Everything Leander is known for
Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Leander.
The Webster Massacre occurred just east of present-day Leander in October 1839, when a party of 16 settlers traveling westward through the area was attacked by a band of Comanche, and all but three were killed. A 1936 Texas Centennial marker marks the location where the dead were buried in a mass grave, now located inside the Davis Cemetery east of Leander.
A 1936 Texas Centennial marker marks the location of the Webster Massacre, where a party of 16 settlers was attacked by Comanche in 1839, and all but three were killed. The marker is located at the site of the mass grave, now inside the Davis Cemetery east of Leander.
The city was named in honor of Leander 'Catfish' Brown, one of the railroad officials responsible for the completion of the Austin and Northwestern Railroad line. The town was established in 1882 on land sold by the railroad company to prospective citizens.
Harriet 'Hattie' Cluck (1846-1938), wife of cattle driver George Cluck, joined the spring 1871 Chisholm Trail drive from Williamson County to Abilene, Kansas while pregnant with her 4th child and accompanied by three children ages 2, 5, 7. Credited as the first woman to travel the Chisholm Trail. Crossed flooded Red River Apr 23, 1871. Returned to Texas and bought 329 acres on Brushy Creek (incl. Running Brushy spring) Dec 3, 1873. Son Emmett Cluck renamed the community Cedar Park in 1887.
On Dec. 29, 1982, Texas Highway Department archeologists uncovered the skeleton of a pre-historic human female at the Wilson-Leonard Brushy Creek Site (approx. 6 mi. SE). Because of the proximity of the grave site to the town of Leander, the skeleton became known as the Leanderthal Lady. Carbon testing indicates the woman lived 10-13,000 years ago. She was about 30 years old at the time of death and measured 5' 3" in height. As one of the earliest intact burials uncovered in the United States, the site is a valuable source of information on the nation's prehistoric past.
8,700-seat arena at 183-A and New Hope Rd, opened Sept 2009 ($55M build). First event: George Strait concert Sept 25, 2009. Home to Texas Stars (AHL affiliate of Dallas Stars, relocated from Iowa 2008-09; won 2014 Calder Cup) and Austin Spurs (NBA G League, San Antonio Spurs affiliate). Originally Cedar Park Center; H-E-B bought naming rights April 22, 2016.
1 3/4 miles east to the graves of the victims of the Webster Massacre, which occurred August 27, 1839 when John Webster and a party of about thirty, en route to a land grant in Burnet County, were attacked by a band of Comanche Indians. After attempting to flee under cover of darkness, they were trapped on an open prairie. Mrs. Webster and her two children were made prisoners, all the others were killed. In death they rest together in one grave. (1936)
James P. Magill, farmer and state legislator, was born on March 5, 1825, in Lincoln County, Kentucky, son of Samuel P. and Nancy (Shackleford) Magill. He came to Texas around 1846, and while on the road to Austin from Houston, he learned that the first battle of the Mexican War had taken place. Magill joined the state rangers under Captain Henry Eustace McCulloch . He was elected second lieutenant and spent the war patrolling the Indian frontier. After the war James Magill returned to Kentucky to marry Angelina S. Evans on March 5, 1850, in Wayne County; they had fourteen children. He moved to Burnet County, Texas, later that year, joining his older brother William. Here Magill served as county clerk for eight years. He resigned to represent Burnet, Llano, and San Saba counties in 1861 in the Ninth Texas Legislature. Magill remained active with the rangers. In 1865 he was wounded in the side by an arrow during a skirmish with Indians. In 1869 he bought a farm of 800 acres in Williamson County. He served one term as commissioner of Williamson County. Magill was a Presbyterian and a Democrat. He was also a Mason and served as secretary and Worshipful Master of Valley Lodge in Burnet. He obtained all chapter degrees. Magill died on April 7, 1903, in Williamson County. He is buried in Bagdad Cemetery in Leander.
Local farmer Alpheus S. Mason (1839-1926) constructed this house about 1866. Situated on Bagdad Road, an important early military and commercial route in central Texas, the home features a double-galleried porch with Victorian detailing. Mason, a veteran of the Civil War, was instrumental in the early growth of Bagdad (now a ghost town) and Leander (3 mi. NE) through his leadership in church, business, Masonic, and political activities. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1983
Legendary Austin BBQ with 2-3 hour waits. Obama waited in line here.
Willie built his own ghost town on his Spicewood ranch for the 1986 movie Red Headed Stranger -- a whole frontier village with a saloon chapel livery and…
The Texas Capitol in Austin is taller than the US Capitol in Washington -- three hundred and eight feet to two hundred and eighty-eight -- because Texas wanted…
Barton Springs is the main outflow of the Edwards Aquifer right in the middle of Austin. Thirty-one million gallons of sixty-eight-degree water pour out of a…
Clifford Antone was a kid from Port Arthur who loved the blues so much he opened a club on East Sixth Street in 1975 and spent the next thirty years flying…
When Austin rebuilt the Congress Avenue Bridge in 1980 the new design accidentally created perfect crevices for Mexican free-tailed bats. By the mid-1990s one…
A natural swimming hole under a 50-foot waterfall in a collapsed grotto.
A domed grotto of limestone where an underground river collapsed thousands of years ago and left a fifty-foot waterfall spilling into a jade-green pool.…
572 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.
The Webster Massacre occurred just east of present-day Leander in October 1839, when a party of 16 settlers traveling westward through the area was attacked by a band of Comanche, and all but three were killed. A 1936…
1 3/4 miles east to the graves of the victims of the Webster Massacre, which occurred August 27, 1839 when John Webster and a party of about thirty, en route to a land grant in Burnet County, were attacked by a band of…
You're driving past Leander, a town born from a railroad's decision. Just a mile west of here, the town of Bagdad was thriving back in 1854. But when the Austin & Northwestern Railroad came through in 1882, they…
On Dec. 29, 1982, Texas Highway Department archeologists uncovered the skeleton of a pre-historic human female at the Wilson-Leonard Brushy Creek Site (approx. 6 mi. SE). Because of the proximity of the grave site to…
When Bagdad's people followed the railroad to Leander, they brought their church with them, literally. The congregation that became Leander United Methodist Church was organized around 1860 out in Bagdad, first meeting…
You're driving past the site of the Leander Presbyterian Church. This congregation started way back in 1857 as Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church, meeting in the town of Bagdad. But when the railroad arrived in 1882 and…
You're driving past the Leander United Methodist Church, a spiritual anchor for this community for over a century and a half. Organized around 1860 in the nearby settlement of Bagdad, early services were held in humble…
You're driving past the site of Leander's first public school, which opened its doors in 1893. But the roots of education here go back even further, to 1855, with a school held in Bagdad, a town that vanished when…
On December 29, 1982, highway archeologists digging ahead of road construction near Brushy Creek hit something staggering: the nearly complete skeleton of a young woman who had been deliberately buried roughly 10,000 to…
A mile west of modern Leander once stood Bagdad, named in the 1850s after the Tennessee hometown of an early settler. By the early 1880s it was a real town, with two blacksmith shops, a hotel, two schools, a Masonic…
The historic Bagdad Cemetery, a mile west of downtown Leander, is the last real piece of the vanished town of Bagdad, established in 1857 with the burial of three-year-old John Babcock. It holds Texas Revolution and…
Bagdad Cemetery lies on North Bagdad Road about a mile west of downtown Leander, and is the last surviving trace of the vanished town of Bagdad. It was established in 1857 with the burial of three-year-old John Babcock…
What makes the Leanderthal Lady world-class isn't just her age, it's how scientists proved it. To date a skeleton this old you can't guess; you measure. Researchers used radiocarbon dating, which tracks the steady decay…
The town you're rolling through got its name from the railroad in 1882, the year the Austin and Northwestern began selling lots at the new townsite on July 17. The trouble is, historians still argue over exactly whose…
Before he was filling Texas dance halls, country singer-songwriter Kyle Park was just a kid in Leander learning guitar. Born in Austin and raised here, Park picked up the instrument at 14 and wrote his first song and…
If you'd stood beside these tracks in the mid-1880s, you'd have watched the Texas State Capitol roll past one flatcar at a time. When builders needed stone for the grand new Capitol in Austin, they turned to the…
Long before Leander was Austin's fastest-growing suburb, it was a quarry town. George Allen opened a small limestone quarry here in 1894, hauling rock to the railroad by tractor to ship out. The real industrial leap…
The opening sequence of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre — a radio bulletin describing grave robbing in rural Texas, over images of a desecrated cemetery — was filmed in a real, active historic burial ground in Williamson…
There's a nice coincidence baked into the smoke at Southside Market & Barbeque in Leander: the barbecue brand and the town were both founded in 1882. Southside started that year in Elgin, about an hour southeast, where…
You're driving past the Pickle-Mason House, built in 1871 by master carpenter Andrew Porter Pickle. He built this home for his family, and it stayed in the Pickle family for over forty years. Imagine this place bustling…
James P. Magill, farmer and state legislator, was born on March 5, 1825, in Lincoln County, Kentucky, son of Samuel P. and Nancy (Shackleford) Magill. He came to Texas around 1846, and while on the road to Austin from…
You're driving through Williamson County, near Leander, where James Henry Faubion built his life. He was a Confederate veteran who fought through the Civil War, even captured and held as a POW. After the war, he came to…
You're driving through Leander, a town born from a railroad's arrival. Back in 1882, the Austin and Northwestern Railroad bypassed the older community of Bagdad, just a mile west. Merchants quickly packed up their…
You're driving past the site of the Norton Moses Lodge, a Masonic Lodge chartered in 1871. They built their first lodge building in 1870, which also served as a school. In 1899, the lodge moved to the new railroad town…
You're driving past Bagdad Cemetery, opened in 1857 with the burial of a three-year-old boy named John Babcock. His father later gave the land to the community. Early burials here included Civil War veteran John Haile…
Local farmer Alpheus S. Mason (1839-1926) constructed this house about 1866. Situated on Bagdad Road, an important early military and commercial route in central Texas, the home features a double-galleried porch with…
You're driving past the Heinatz Homestead, built in the fall of 1850 by John Frederick Heinatz, a settler who came all the way from Germany. He built this home, along with a store and post office, all from native stone.…
You're driving past the oldest house in Leander, built even before the town itself existed! Imagine, this rock-and-cedar home was a three-day wagon trip from Austin back in 1872. J.C. and Nancy Bryson built the first…
You're driving past the resting place of victims of the Webster Massacre. On August 27, 1839, about thirty homeseekers, led by John Webster, were heading to Burnet County when a band of Comanche Indians attacked. They…
Glenn (Leander, TX) placed on the 5A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Shane McHenry (0.594 avg); Jordan Owens (0.478 avg).
You're driving past the site of a crucial frontier defense, built by Texas Rangers in 1836. This was Captain John J. Tumlinson's Block House, the very first white settlement in Williamson County. Imagine the constant…
8,700-seat arena at 183-A and New Hope Rd, opened Sept 2009 ($55M build). First event: George Strait concert Sept 25, 2009. Home to Texas Stars (AHL affiliate of Dallas Stars, relocated from Iowa 2008-09; won 2014…
Cedar Park (Cedar Park, TX) placed on the 5A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Hudson Cuevas (0.588 avg, 3 HR).
For a city its size, Cedar Park punches well above its weight in pro sports, and it traces to one building near 183A and New Hope Road. The arena opened in September 2009 as the Cedar Park Center, built for about 55…
You're driving past the site of New Hope First Baptist Church, a community cornerstone for over a century. While Baptists may have gathered here as early as 1848, the church was formally chartered in 1868 by six members…
The rail line slicing through Cedar Park is the same one the Austin and Northwestern laid in 1882, the railroad that renamed the town and carried its cedar and limestone to market. More than a century later, that…
The old wooden building on Whitestone Boulevard is the Cedar Park Depot. It was built in eighteen eighty seven by the Missouri Kansas and Texas Railroad, the line that ran north out of Austin to Burnet and Lampasas, and…
Before Hattie Cluck helped found the town that became Cedar Park, she did something almost no woman of her era did: she rode the Chisholm Trail. In the spring of 1871, Harriet Louise Standefer Cluck went up the trail to…
Cedar Park sits on a seam of building stone good enough to ship across the country. In April 1929, W.H. Johnson founded Texas Quarries here and began cutting a pale, even-grained limestone from a geologic layer…
The city you're passing through wore three different names before it settled on this one. It started as Running Brushy, after a hard-flowing spring that fed the headwaters of Brushy Creek. In 1873 George and Harriet…
The name Cedar Park is not decoration. The hills around here were thick with Ashe juniper, the scrubby tree everyone calls mountain cedar, and from the 1870s into the mid-1900s cutting it was real money. As barbed wire…
The combat aviator Mary Jennings Hegar grew up in Cedar Park, moving here at age seven, long before her name reached the national press. She trained as an Air Force rescue pilot and flew the HH-60 Pave Hawk on combat…
A few miles from modern Cedar Park stood Bagdad, a farming and ranching settlement that thrived before either town you know existed. White settlers reached this prairie in the late 1840s, and a post office opened in the…
Cedar Park earned the second half of its name from an actual park, one that drew day-trippers out of Austin on the train. In 1892, when George Cluck sold the railroad a lot beside the tracks, the deed itself called for…
If you want a meal that fits the place you're standing in, Stiles Switch BBQ Brews sits at 800 West Whitestone Boulevard, just down the road from the old depot where the Austin Steam Train still pulls out. It's a…
Harriet 'Hattie' Cluck (1846-1938), wife of cattle driver George Cluck, joined the spring 1871 Chisholm Trail drive from Williamson County to Abilene, Kansas while pregnant with her 4th child and accompanied by three…
You're driving through Cedar Park, a town that owes its start to cedar trees and limestone. Back in 1873, George and Harriet Cluck bought this land, and their ranch became the heart of the community. It was first called…
You're driving past the John G. Matthews House, built in 1872. Matthews himself came to Texas way back in 1840, joining the Rangers and fighting in the Mexican War. He built this sturdy, hand-hewn limestone house for…
You're driving past the site where a tense moment unfolded in Texas history. It's May of 1839. Manuel Flores, an emissary of the Mexican government, is leading a small group, carrying ammunition to Native Americans on…
You're driving past Cedar Park Cemetery, a place that started as a family burial ground. George and Harriett Cluck, who settled here in the early 1870s after a cattle drive, set aside land on their farm in 1901 for…
You're driving through Cedar Park, but did you know this town was once called Running Brushy? That's right, named after a spring that fed Cluck Creek. In 1871, George and Harriet Cluck, the first woman to drive cattle…
You're driving past what's known as the Wilson-Leonard Brushy Creek Burial Site. Back in 1973, Texas Highway Department archaeologists found this place was a major camping ground for ancient peoples, especially during…
Here's a name with a temper behind it. Back in the eighteen seventies, folks settled along Sandy Creek northwest of where Austin sits today, and by around eighteen eighty they wanted a post office of their own. So they…
It is tempting to think the Post Office Department was just being stubborn with the folks out here on Sandy Creek. But there was a real reason behind all those rejections, and it is a nice little piece of how the mail…
If almost everything else here faded away, one building refused to. The community first put up a school back in eighteen seventy-seven, on land the Gray family gave. Then, in nineteen oh nine, they built a new one on…
Nameless is not alone. Texas has a whole quiet fraternity of towns that got their strange names the same rough way, tangling with the Post Office over what to call themselves. Out in Ector County there is a town called…
For a place called Nameless, this spot on Sandy Creek was very much a real, breathing community once. By eighteen eighty-four, just a few years after it got its stubborn name, Nameless had a church, a district school, a…
People love to call Nameless a ghost town, and it is easy to see why. The post office is long gone. The general store is gone. Most of the houses melted back into the brush decades ago. But let's be careful with that…
Here is a fun little knot to chew on as you drive. The name of this place is Nameless. Which means the moment anybody says it out loud, they have contradicted it. You cannot ask directions to Nameless without naming it.…
You're driving past the site of Nameless, a community that got its unusual name from a frustrated reply to the post office. After six names were rejected, locals famously told the authorities to 'let the post office be…
You're driving through Williamson County, maybe near Liberty Hill, and you might just feel the echoes of a massive party. Back in 1975, an estimated 90,000 people descended on this area for Willie Nelson's Fourth of…
You're driving through Cedar Park, a town that played a key role in building the Texas State Capitol! Back in the 1880s, contractors found the limestone wasn't strong enough for the new capitol building. So, they turned…
You're driving through Williamson County, not far from Liberty Hill, the birthplace of John Edward Hickman. He wasn't just any lawyer; Hickman rose to become Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, serving from 1948…
You're driving through Liberty Hill, a town whose very location has been on the move. Back in 1853, the first post office was established three miles west of where you are now. The postmaster, William Oliver Spencer,…
You're driving near Lago Vista, Travis County. This is the Baker Family Cemetery, established in 1903. It was later designated a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2001.
There's a federally threatened species of salamander living under Cedar Park, and almost no one in town knows about it. It's called the Jollyville Plateau salamander, scientific name Eurycea tonkawae, and it exists only…
As you look at the vast expanse of Lake Travis, remember that you're not seeing a natural lake. You're looking at a massive feat of civil engineering. This entire body of water exists because of the Mansfield Dam, built…
Jonestown was a gamble on water that had not arrived. In the late 1930s brothers Warren and Emmet A. Jones looked at dry ranch land above the Colorado River and saw a future shoreline. Crews were building Mansfield Dam…
The very thing that gives Jonestown its beauty - Lake Travis - showed its power in October of 2018. After days of torrential rain upriver, a huge volume of water surged down the Colorado and the Llano. Lake Travis,…
For half a century Jonestown drifted along as weekend cabins, boat ramps, and fewer than a thousand year-round souls. Then Austin looked north. The city moved aggressively to claim the Colorado River bed and lakeshore…
You're driving past Liberty Hill, where this community's spiritual heart has beaten for over a century and a half. The Methodist Church here started way back in 1854, a mile and a half northwest of where you are now.…
You're driving through Liberty Hill, and right here is a building with a long history. It started in 1875 as the Liberty Hill Lodge No. 432, meeting first in the local Methodist church. But by 1883, they moved upstairs…
You're driving past what might be the oldest building still standing in Liberty Hill. Look to your right – this hand-cut limestone structure was built back in 1871 by S.P. Stubblefield, a veteran of the Mexican War. His…
The trees that give Cedar Park its name also gave rise to a rugged culture. For generations these rocky hills were home to the 'cedar choppers' — fiercely independent, often poor families, many of them Scots-Irish stock…
Cedar Park's always been a place of steady growth, but the arrival of Firefly Aerospace has really felt like a shift. You can sense it in the air, a buzz of possibility that wasn’t quite there before. We're used to the…
In the fall of 1839, long before Cedar Park existed, this was a dangerous frontier. A party led by the land speculator John Webster was working toward the headwaters of Brushy Creek, between the forks of the San…
The railroad tracks running through Cedar Park once carried one of the strangest freight assignments in Texas history: a mountain, hauled to Austin piece by piece to build the State Capitol. The Austin and…
You're driving past Champion Cemetery, the final resting place for a Texas pioneer. John 'Jack' Champion arrived in Texas by 1850, the same year he married Naomi Jane Standefer here in Williamson County. By 1854, he'd…
You might not expect to find a world-class collection of modern art in a small Texas town, but Liberty Hill is full of surprises. In 1976, a local artist named Mel Fowler had a wild idea: to host an international…
As you drive through Liberty Hill, you are crossing one of the most significant geological features in Texas: the Balcones Escarpment. This isn't just a line on a map; it's a long, ancient fault zone that marks the…
The downtown you're passing through is a testament to 19th-century grit and pragmatism, and it is not where Liberty Hill started. The first post office opened in 1853 three miles west of here, and William Oliver…
The history of Liberty Hill, Texas, dates back to the 1840s when the first settlers arrived. The town's name was suggested by its first postmaster, W.O. Spencer, in 1853. Over the years, Liberty Hill moved eastward…
As you drive through Williamson County, you're passing through an area that once powered Texas's growth with nothing but cedar trees. After the Republic of Texas opened this land for settlement in <say-as…
Hairy Man Road is a real, signed county road in Round Rock, running dark and narrow along the wooded south bank of Brushy Creek, the low oak branches arching right over the pavement. The legend says a boy was lost from…
You're driving through Cedar Park, heading past the site of the original Cypress School. Back in the 1860s, neighbors in the Cypress Creek settlement pooled their resources to build a log schoolhouse on a hilltop. By…
Brushy Creek, a census-designated place in Williamson County, Texas, first appeared in the 1990 U.S. census. Over the years, it has seen significant changes in its area and population. Prior to the 2010 census, parts of…
You're driving through Anderson County, near Brushy Creek. Settled around 1840, this community got its start when a wagon train from South Carolina arrived in 1873. They named the town for the nearby creek, though some…
You're driving past the John M. King Log House, a piece of Texas history that might date all the way back to 1859. John M. King, a farmer who came from Alabama, bought this property in 1879 and lived here with his…
You're driving past the site of the First Baptist Church of Liberty Hill. Organized in 1882 when the railroad brought the town to this location, its members erected this building on land donated by Rev. W.O. Spencer.…
You're driving past Pond Springs Cemetery, a final resting place for folks who settled this area way back. The oldest grave here belongs to Mrs. Asenath Stewart, who died in 1862. Imagine the life she lived! Also buried…
You're driving past the site of the Bryson Stagecoach Stop, a crucial hub for travelers in pioneer Texas. John T. Bryson and his wife Amelia built this home in the 1850s, using sturdy cedar logs and local stone. Imagine…
You're driving past the site of a man who saw some serious Texas history. John Giles Matthews arrived in Texas back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1839</say-as>, settling in Austin. He fought as a Ranger for…
You're driving through Williamson County, near Liberty Hill. Look around – this was the frontier back in 1853 when William O. Spencer settled here. He'd moved to Texas years before, but after his wife Amy died, he…
You're driving past the site of Rock House, a pioneer community that thrived for over a century. It all started in the late 1840s when Uriah H. Anderson settled here, thanks to a Texas land grant. By 1875, kids were…
You're driving past Liberty Hill Cemetery, a resting place that's been serving this community for over 170 years. The earliest burials here date back to 1852, when settlers were just putting down roots. In 1875, John T.…
Westwood (Austin, TX) placed on the 6A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Justice Moore (0.446 avg).
Anderson Mill, a neighborhood in Austin, Texas, is named after Thomas Anderson who set up a mill in the 1860s to produce gunpowder for the Confederate Army. This mill is an example of early engineering, harnessing the…
You're driving past the site of Georgetown's First Baptist Church. Established in 1866 with thirteen members, the congregation initially met in a shared Union building. The church later moved and built new facilities…
You're driving past the Fore Cemetery, a final resting place established by a prominent settler. Wiley Fore arrived here in 1883, joining his nephew Robert Baker's community. Almost immediately, Fore organized the local…
This stretch of Interstate 35 in Williamson County, near Round Rock and Georgetown, is named for Patrolman Billy Dan Howry of the Texas Department of Public Safety. In 1968, Howry was making a traffic stop on I-35 when…
Texas Highway Department drillers punched into this cave in 1963 while testing the ground for an Interstate 35 overpass in Georgetown. The drill bit dropped…
You're driving past Georgetown, and right beneath your tires lies a prehistoric world! In 1963, a Texas Highway Department drilling team accidentally discovered the Inner Space Cavern, a massive cave system carved by…
You're driving past the site of Anderson's Mill, built in 1863 by Thomas Anderson. This wasn't just any mill; during the Civil War, it was converted into a powder mill for the Confederate Armies. Imagine the vital,…
You're driving past the Page-Decrow-Weir House in Georgetown, a stunning example of Queen Anne architecture. Built in 1903 for rancher J.M. Page, it quickly changed hands, first to his brother-in-law Thomas Decrow, and…
You're cruising along the North Fork of the San Gabriel River, a key part of the Brazos River system. This stream has been a lifeline for ages. Spanish explorer Fray Isidro Felix Espinosa first named it Rio de San…
You're cruising past Round Rock Cemetery, a resting place for pioneers, citizens, and a notorious outlaw. The oldest stone here marks the grave of Angeline Scott, who died in 1851 at just 11 years old. But this ground…
You're driving past Old Round Rock Cemetery, and right near the famous outlaw Sam Bass, there's a whole different story. Look for a section enclosed by cedar posts and barbed wire. This is a slave burial ground, set…
Hey road trippers! As you cruise through Round Rock, imagine a time when this whole area was just dusty plains. Back in 1848, a blacksmith named Jacob Harrell built what's believed to be the very first school in…
You're driving past the site of Round Rock's very first organized fire department! Back in 1884, folks here formed the Hose and Hand Pump Company. They scraped together cash for gear through picnics, dances, and box…
Just down the road from Volente is a place that put this quiet corner of Lake Travis on the map: Hippie Hollow. It's the only legally recognized clothing-optional public park in Texas, and its story is pure Austin…
The beautiful lake defining Volente wasn't a happy accident; it's a massive piece of civil engineering built to solve a deadly problem. The Colorado River used to be dangerously unpredictable. On June 15th, 1935,…
As you look out over the calm surface of Lake Travis, it's hard to picture what's underneath. Volente was here long before the water was. Thomas and Lucy Anderson built a mill on Cypress Creek that ground gunpowder for…
Jollyville's history began with Henry Rhodes, who received a land grant of about 1,000 acres from the Republic of Texas in 1841. However, the area's name comes from Confederate general John G. Jolly, who purchased 160…
In terms of ancestry, Volente is a diverse village with 41.7% of German, 30.0% of English, 10.9% of Irish, 7.3% of French, 4.9% of American, and 3.9% of Italian descent. Ethnically, 84.4% are Non-Hispanic White, 13.0%…
Volente may feel like an old town, but it only officially became one in 2003. For decades, it was just an unincorporated patch of Travis County. By the late 1990s, the boom in Austin was creeping closer. Residents grew…
You're driving past the Harrell Cemetery, a final resting place for some of Williamson County's earliest settlers. Jacob and Mary Harrell arrived in Texas way back in 1833 with Robertson's Colony. Their family soon…
You're driving past the Barker House in Round Rock. In May of 1873, E. B. and Mary Harvey Barker purchased this home, built from local limestone. They owned a farm about twenty miles east, but they wintered here so…
You're driving past the last remnant of the Hopewell community. Pioneers settled here in the 1840s, facing down hardships and Indian raids. In 1863, tragedy struck the Johnson family; Wofford, Mary, and their daughter…
You're driving past the Old Dimmitt Home, built way back in 1866. Imagine hauling native limestone by ox-drawn wagon to construct this place! John Jones Dimmitt, a true Renaissance man – surveyor, lawyer, mathematician,…
You're driving through Round Rock, near where folks used to call this place Pond Springs. Back in the 1850s, James O. Rice settled here by a spring-fed pond. By 1854, a log schoolhouse went up, and it wasn't just for…
You are standing at the actual round rock. It sits right out there in Brushy Creek, table shaped, the landmark that gave this whole city its name. But what the rock really was, was a crossing. In the years after the…
Hey road-trippers! You're cruising past the site of Round Rock's very first permanent post office. Built around 1853, this stone building was also a mercantile store, serving the pioneer road connecting Austin and…
You're driving past Round Rock, a place named for a unique geological feature right here in Brushy Creek. For years, this large, table-shaped stone served as a vital low-water crossing for both Native Americans and…
In 1982, a construction crew was doing routine core sampling for a new road when they unearthed something extraordinary: the ancient skeleton of a woman. This was no ordinary discovery. Archaeologists determined the…
One of the most notorious con men of the Old West got his start right here in Round Rock. Jefferson Randolph Smith, born in Georgia in 1860 to a once-wealthy family ruined by the Civil War, moved with his family to…
Imagine a town so determined to survive that it packs up and follows the tracks. That's the story of Bagdad, the community that stood a mile west of here before Leander existed. In 1882 the Austin and Northwestern…
You’re at the northernmost point of a major modern engineering project: the Capital MetroRail Red Line. When Leander began its explosive growth, the main highway connecting it to Austin, US 183, became hopelessly…
The history of this land began long before Leander was a town, and some of it is tragic. In 1839, a settlement party of thirteen led by John Webster was moving through this country, then the far edge of the Texas…
You're driving past the Caldwell-Palm House, a solid limestone structure built back in 1860 by T. J. Caldwell. He and his wife Letitia quarried the limestone right here on their land for the walls, and used local cedars…
This unassuming brick building was once the lifeblood of Georgetown, Texas. In 1911, the Georgetown Light and Water Works was constructed to provide electricity and a reliable water source to the growing community. It…
You're driving past the Williams-Buck Cemetery, a final resting place with roots reaching back to the wild days of the Texas frontier. Local legend says a slave named Willie Osborne and an unknown Native American are…
You're driving past the Williamson County area where William Cornelius Dalrymple made his mark. Born in North Carolina, he fought in the Texas Revolution and served as a Texas Ranger in the 1830s. He settled here in…
You're driving through Williamson County, passing the final resting place of John McQueen Taylor. Born in Tennessee in 1812, Taylor arrived in Texas in 1829, part of Lorenzo de Zavala's empresario grant. He saw action…
You're driving past the Marsh F. Smith House in Georgetown, a beautiful example of Foursquare architecture built back in 1908. Marsh Smith himself was a man of local importance, running a cottonseed oil mill and later…
You're driving through Williamson County, near the site of what was once Jollyville. Settled in the 1840s, this area saw pioneers like Elisha Prewitt, who fought at San Jacinto. Later, Civil War veteran William H.…
You're driving past the Jolly Cemetery, a pioneer burial ground named for John Grey Jolly and his wife Nancy. The earliest marked grave here is Margaret Evergreen Robinson, who died in 1872. Also buried here are five…
You're driving past Wesley Chapel A.M.E. Church, a testament to Georgetown's African American history. Organized in 1869 by missionary Rev. Richard Robert Haywood, the congregation bought land here in 1881. They…
You're driving past Old Georgetown Cemetery, a burial ground used from 1840 to 1902. This land was part of the original donation for the county seat in 1848. Many early citizens rest here, some with unknown names and…
You're driving past the site of a landmark school in Georgetown's African American history. It started as 'The Colored School' in the early 1900s, offering the only local education for Black students. Principal S. C.…
You're driving through Williamson County, maybe near Georgetown, and you're passing through the story of Whitfield Chalk. He arrived in Texas in 1839, and right away, he was in the thick of it. Chalk fought in the…
You're driving through Georgetown, Texas, and right here is a place where a pivotal moment in Texas history unfolded. In <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1861</say-as>, Thomas Proctor Hughes, a lawyer who had just…
Iola Bowden Chambers, music teacher and director of the Negro Fine Arts School, was born at Holder, Texas, on October 18, 1904. She was the daughter of Andrew Mack and Amanda (Heflin) Bowden. Her father was a doctor,…
You're driving through Georgetown, home to Southwestern University. Right here, Claude Carr Cody, a math professor and administrator, fought a major battle to keep the school from moving to Dallas. In 1910, a proposal…
You're driving through Williamson County, maybe near Georgetown. Right here, in the late 1860s, William Cornelius Dalrymple, a veteran soldier and politician, led two expeditions into the rugged Rio Grande country. What…
You're driving through Williamson County, and right here is Georgetown, a town named for George Washington Glasscock. He was an early settler who helped organize this county back in 1846. But Glasscock wasn't just a…
You're driving through Williamson County, and right here in Georgetown, a pivotal moment in Texas law enforcement history unfolded. In 1930, a local lawyer and politician named Harry N. Graves, who served in the Texas…
You're driving through Georgetown right now, a place that was home to a scientific pioneer. Robert Stewart Hyer, a professor at Southwestern University, was experimenting with wireless communication. In 1894, he…
You're driving through Georgetown, home to Southwestern University, where Henry Edwin Meyer left an indelible mark on music education. Arriving in 1926, Meyer became a professor of piano, organ, and sacred music,…
You're driving through Georgetown, home to Southwestern University. Right here, Francis Asbury Mood, a Methodist preacher, took charge of a struggling school in Chappell Hill in 1868. He saw its potential, but knew it…
You're driving through Grayson County, Texas, and the town of Georgetown right here owes its name to George Robertson Reeves. He was a legislator, a soldier, and a prominent figure in this area. Reeves fought in major…
You're driving through Georgetown, home to Southwestern University. It all started back in 1870 when five Methodist conferences decided to merge four existing colleges into one new institution. They named it Texas…
You're driving through Williamson County, not far from Georgetown. Right here, in the mid-1800s, lived Edward Hughes Vontress. He was a lawyer, a judge, and a state representative. But when the Civil War broke out,…
You're driving through Georgetown, Texas, a town with a rich visual history thanks to photographer Robert James Stone. Stone made a name for himself right here as 'Southwestern's Photographer.' Though he never attended…
You're driving through Georgetown, the county seat of Williamson County. This town got its start back in 1848, named for George Washington Glasscock, who donated the land. Pioneers were drawn here by the timber and…
On the historic square at 716 South Austin Avenue, the Williamson Museum keeps the county's memory inside an old bank. The building went up around 1910 to 1912 as the Farmers State Bank, a handsome piece of the square's…
You're passing the old Railroad Produce Warehouse, built way back in 1904. This wasn't just any old storage building; it was part of a whole industrial hub that sprung up around the railroad lines here in Georgetown.…
You're driving past the Dog Run Log Cabin, built way back in 1851 by William Williams, a settler who came all the way from Arkansas. Look closely at the construction – cypress, oak, and cedar logs, all joined by wooden…
You're driving through Williamson County, not far from Georgetown. Back around 1920, this area was a hotbed for the Ku Klux Klan. Right here, lawyer Richard Critz, who served as Georgetown's city attorney and later…
You're driving through northern Grayson County, not far from Lake Texoma. Right here, in November of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1840</say-as>, a temporary Republic of Texas fort called Fort Johnston was…
You're driving through Georgetown, Texas, a town that was once home to John Cowper Granbery Jr. A Methodist minister by training, Granbery became a sociology professor influenced by Jane Addams and earned a doctorate…
You're driving through Williamson County, where William K. Makemson's family settled way back in 1847. He grew up here, working as a farmer, drover, and shoemaker to support his family after his father died. He even…
You're driving through West Texas, and right here, you're passing through land once owned by John Wesley Snyder. He arrived in Texas back in 1856, partnering with his brother on orchards and horse trading. But Snyder…
You're driving through Georgetown, home to Southwestern University, where Roland Angus Springer spent over three decades shaping the drama department. <break time="400ms"/> Arriving in 1943, he transformed a small stage…
You're driving through Georgetown, and right here is the Farmers State Bank Building. This beauty, built in 1912, was the heart of local commerce. The bank itself started way back in 1898, becoming the Farmers State…
You're driving through Georgetown, and just ahead is one of the oldest commercial buildings still standing here. Built around 1870 by M.E. Steele, this place started life as a log hotel. Steele himself ran a mercantile…
Georgetown is a place shaped by what lies beneath. The limestone bedrock, riddled with caves like Inner Space Cavern just south of town, is the foundation of everything. This porous rock filters the water, providing a…
You're driving near Georgetown, Texas, a town that owes its start to a railroad that almost didn't make it. The Georgetown Railroad was chartered in 1878, aiming to connect this city to Round Rock. They laid ten miles…
You're driving through Williamson County, maybe even passing Georgetown itself. Right here, in the late 1800s, George Washington Glasscock Jr. was making his mark. After serving in the Civil War and surviving a yellow…
You're driving through Georgetown, home to Southwestern University. Right here, John Howell McLean served as the university's regent from 1890 to 1897. He was unique – the only head of Southwestern to have actually…
You're driving past the site of early educational efforts in Round Rock. Back in the late 1800s, this community poured its heart into building schools. First came the Greenwood Masonic Institute, founded in 1867. Then,…
You're driving past the site of Macedonia Baptist Church, organized in 1881 by nine families. Their first worship services were held under a backyard arbor. The congregation built its first sanctuary on this site, later…
In 1963 a Texas Highway Department crew was doing routine core testing along the route of the new Interstate 35, drilling deep holes to check whether the ground could carry a bridge. Eight of their twenty test bores…
The courthouse rising over downtown is the fifth one Williamson County has built on this square. The first were wood and brick frontier buildings; a grand Second Empire courthouse stood here too, until it was torn down…
On September 8, 1921, the remnants of a Gulf hurricane stalled over Williamson County and let go. Rain fell for roughly a day and a half, and a gauge near Thrall, just east of Georgetown, recorded more than 38 inches in…
When explorers and scientists pushed into Inner Space Cavern in the 1960s, they found more than rock. Sealed in the cave sediments was one of the richest Ice-Age fossil deposits in Texas, the bones of animals that…
You're driving through Georgetown, a city named for George Washington Glasscock, Sr. He was born in Kentucky in 1810, fought in the Black Hawk War and then for Texas independence. Glasscock helped organize this county,…
You're driving past the heart of early Georgetown, a town shaped by men like Emzy Taylor. After fighting as a Confederate captain in the Civil War, Taylor returned to lead the family business. But he did more than just…
When Williamson County was carved out in 1848, its first commissioners reportedly met under a live oak to decide where to plant the county seat. The man who settled the question was George Washington Glasscock, a…
The singer-songwriter Conan Gray grew up right here in Georgetown, and his hometown is not a footnote to his music, it is the music. As a high-school kid he filmed shaky vlogs about life in small-town Texas, a place he…
At 312 S Main Street stands a squat limestone building with crenellated battlements that make it look like a small medieval fortress dropped into downtown Georgetown. This is the Old Williamson County Jail, built in…
You're driving through Georgetown, where this building has a frontier past. Back in 1848, the cabin on this site served as the very first county courthouse. Then, in 1870, John H. Shafer built this limestone saddlery,…
You're driving past the Williamson County birthplace of John Edward Hickman, a giant of the Texas legal system. He rose from a local lawyer to become Chief Justice of the Texas Supreme Court, serving in that top role…
You're driving past the Old Dimmitt Building, a Georgetown landmark that's worn many hats since 1901. Originally a hotel, it later housed mercantile stores, Georgetown's very first movie house, an auto agency, a drug…
You're driving past Williamson County. Created March 13, 1848, and organized by a special committee approved by Gov. George T. Wood and the 2nd Legislature of the State of Texas, with Georgetown designated as county…
You're driving past Judge Greenleaf Fisk. (May 19, 1807 - Jan. 26, 1888) Born in Albany, New York, Greenleaf Fisk was the son of a Presbyterian minister. He began preparation for the ministry himself but left his…
Just a block off the courthouse square, at 500 South Austin Avenue, the Monument Cafe was built to feel like the kind of Texas roadside diner that lined the highways from the 1920s through the 1940s, all chrome, counter…
You're driving through Georgetown, and right here is the David Love Store, a building that tells a story of Victorian ambition. Built in the mid-1880s for David M. Love, a South Carolina native who found his fortune in…
You're driving through Georgetown, and right here is the C.C. and Mattie Hughes Cody House, completed around 1897. Claude Carr Cody, known as the "Grand Old Man of Southwestern," taught math and administered there for…
You're driving past the old Georgetown Fire House and City Hall, built way back in 1892. This building was the heart of the town, housing everything from the mayor's office and city jail to the fire department and even…
You're driving past the H.C. Craig Building in Georgetown, a real Victorian gem built in 1903. It started as Hugh Clifford Craig's furniture store. Though Craig sold the business just three years later, he held onto the…
You're driving past the KGTN Building, a limestone commercial structure built right here in 1884. It first housed the Sanders & Lesesne Drugstore, which stayed in business for an incredible 76 years. For over 50 of…
You're driving through Georgetown, a town named for a man who helped found it. Back in May of 1848, county commissioners met under a big oak tree to pick a site for the new county seat. George Washington Glasscock, Sr.…
You're driving past Georgetown, where Robert Jones Rivers died in 1854. Born in Virginia in 1806, Rivers was a pioneer, a lawyer, and an orator. His eloquence was said to protect the helpless, and his wit charmed…
You're driving past the Williamson County Courthouse in Georgetown. Completed in 1911, this is the fifth courthouse for the county. Designed by Charles H. Page & Bro., it's a fine Classical Revival structure, still…
You're driving past the home of the Williamson County Sun, Georgetown's oldest newspaper. Founded way back in 1877 by Jessie E. Cooper, this weekly paper was a real engine for progress. Over its first century, the Sun…
You're driving past M.B. Lockett Building. Located on the site of an 1840s store, this structure was built after the Civil War. In the 1880s it housed the mercantile firm of Rucker & Montgomery. Ohio native Melville…
You're driving past C.A.D. Clamp. (1827-1915) Christian Augustus Daniel Clamp was born in Thorn, Prussia (now Torun, Poland). He came to Texas in 1846 and moved to Georgetown in 1851, a year after his marriage to…
You're cruising past the J.A. McDougle Home here in Georgetown. Built in 1895 by the C.S. Belford Lumber Company, this place sports some fancy Victorian styling, complete with ornate stained glass windows. It’s seen a…
You're driving past the former home of William Y. Penn, a prominent figure in Georgetown's history. Penn, a successful merchant and local official, built this house in 1895. It was constructed by the C. S. Belford…
You're driving past the former home of George Irvine, a Scottish immigrant who made his mark in Georgetown. Irvine arrived in Texas and founded the Irvine Brothers Lumber Company, a business that would later become the…