The Rock That Was an Address RoadyGoat

You're in Round Rock, Texas, so here's the rounded-rock tangent behind the name: Round Rock takes its name from an actual rounded rock in Brushy Creek. Before modern signs, it marked a dependable low-water crossing used by travelers, including cattle drives. In eighteen fifty four, postmaster Thomas Oatts renamed the Brushy Creek post office for the landmark. A rock became an address because it answered a practical frontier question: where can people, wagons, livestock, and mail cross? The city later grew near the railroad, but its name still points back to navigation by one memorable object in moving water.

How Water Rounds a Rock RoadyGoat

You're in Round Rock, Texas, so here's the rounded-rock tangent behind the name: rocks in streams collide, scrape against sediment, and lose sharp corners through abrasion. Weathering weakens surfaces, while transport sorts pieces by size and durability. More rounded usually suggests more reworking or travel, but it is not a perfect mileage gauge: rock type, fractures, current energy, sediment, and earlier history all matter. A nearby soft fragment may round quickly while a tough distant one stays angular. Geologists read shape as one clue alongside composition, size, layering, and the deposits around it.

Three Rocks and One Cycle RoadyGoat

You're in Round Rock, Texas, so here's the rounded-rock tangent behind the name: igneous rocks crystallize from molten material, sedimentary rocks form from accumulated particles or chemical and biological deposits, and metamorphic rocks are changed by heat, pressure, and fluids without completely melting. Any type can weather into sediment; burial can turn sediment into rock; heat can metamorphose it; melting can restart an igneous path. Fossils are most often preserved in sedimentary rocks because gentle burial can retain remains or traces. The rock cycle is not a circular conveyor belt with one route, but a network of possible transformations over deep time.

Sam Bass - The Round Rock Shootout

1878

On July 19, 1878, Texas Rangers ambushed train robber Sam Bass in Round Rock as he attempted to rob the Williamson County Bank. Bass was mortally wounded and died two days later on his 27th birthday.

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Baylor Bus Crash of 1927

1927

On the afternoon of January 22, 1927, the Baylor Basketball team traveled from Baylor University in Waco to the University of Texas at Austin for a basketball game. Carrying a total of twenty-two team members, coaching staff, and others, the bus, driven by Joe Potter, a Baylor football team member who had driven busses for Baylor athletic teams before, headed south on Highway No. 2. The weather was rainy. When the bus crossed the railroad tracks in Round Rock, Texas, the vehicle was struck by a north-bound passenger train known as a "Sunshine Special" of the International-Great Northern Railroad. Potter had turned onto the train tracks without realizing that the train would collide with the bus. He did not have time to either accelerate across the tracks nor turn the bus to avoid collision. According to a report in Baylor's Daily Lariat later that day, "the train hit the right rear wheel and telescoped and completely demolished the bus...." Various accounts stated that the train was traveling between 50 to 70 mph, while fogged windows, a "string of boxcars on a siding," and a small house near the tracks obstructed the view of the bus driver. Several players, including John Riley Kane , jumped out of the bus before the collision, but ultimately ten were killed. Newspaper accounts differ as to whether eight or six lost their lives on impact; some reports stated that two of the victims died at a Taylor hospital. Two other injured players died en route to a hospital in nearby Georgetown. Several others were critically injured, while approximately six men, including Coach Ralph Wolf, were slightly injured. The president of the university, Samuel Palmer Brooks , immediately issued a statement that included: "The heart of Baylor University is torn to shreds at this moment. The awful tragedy that brought death and injury to so many of our noble boys overcomes us all." During the week that followed, funerals and memorials took place in Waco and across Texas. More than 3,000 people attended a memorial service at Baylor University, and a mayoral proclamation called for Waco businesses to close during the event. The day after the accident, Waco Times-Herald reporter Jack Hawkins coined the term "Immortal Ten" for the young men who died. The names of the dead were Jack Castellaw; Sam Dillow; Merle Dudley; Ivey Foster Jr.; Robert R. Hailey; James Clyde "Abe" Kelley; Robert L. Hannah, Jr.; Willis E. Murray; James S. Walker; and William P. Winchester. Within a day of the accident, Texas House Speaker Robert Lee Bobbitt called for legislation requiring "automatic safety devices at all crossings." The Texas legislature subsequently introduced a bill to construct overpasses or underpasses at all places where state highways intersect with railroads. As a result of the legislature's actions, the crossing over U. S. Highway 81 (the successor to Highway No. 2) through Round Rock became the first railroad overpass in Texas in 1935. One of the survivors-Wesley Bradshaw, who was a former member of the team and traveled as a guest of Coach Wolf-filed a lawsuit against the International-Great Northern Railroad later in 1927 for the injuries he sustained in the crash. Findings during the trial included statements that the bus traveled in excess of 20 mph, and the driver failed to bring the bus to a complete stop before proceeding to drive over the tracks. Ultimately the suit resulted in a mistrial. Bradshaw was paid $6,500 by the railroad and agreed to not file any further suits against I-GNR but to cooperate with the railroad "in the prosecution of any such action or actions against Baylor University...." Litigation took place into the 1930s. The memory of the Immortal Ten has been preserved as an important part of the history of Baylor University. Every year, during homecoming activities, Baylor holds a memorial ceremony, and freshmen are told the story of the 1927 bus crash. A key moment includes the story of Clyde "Abe" Kelley. Newspaper reports in th

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Bass, Sam

1878

An uneducated Indiana orphan who drifted to Texas as a youth, Sam Bass won fame racing his swift "Denton Mare," gambling, and robbing trains. A rich haul in Nebraska was followed by months of reckless spending. Bass liked to shower gold on people who fed or harbored him while he eluded law officers. In July 1878 he came to Round Rock to rob a bank, and was shot by Texas Rangers. Gallant to the last, refusing to name guilty partners, he became a hero to 19th century balladeers. His celebrated grave is situated in old Round Rock Cemetery.

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Round Rock - Round Rock Donuts (Since 1926)

1926

Iconic bakery at 106 W Liberty Ave, Round Rock. Founded 1926 as Lone Star Bakery by Reinhold R. Moehring. Famous orange-gold glazed donut recipe perfected in the 1940s; distinctive color originally from specialty egg yolks, now from food coloring. Hand-rolled/cut/fried/iced, unique among donut shops. Multiple owners since 1960; moved to current Liberty Ave location 1970. Recently ranked among most legendary dessert destinations worldwide.

Round Rock

1830

Permanent settlement began in this area in the late 1830s. By 1848, former Austin Mayor Jacob Harrell moved here, selling town lots near the Stagecoach Road crossing at Brushy Creek. A post office named “Brushy Creek” opened in 1851 in Thomas Oatts’ store. Three years later, the name changed to “Round Rock” for a distinctive limestone formation marking a natural ford for wagons. With immigration from several states and Sweden, the population doubled during the 1850s, bringing new stores, churches, fraternal lodges and grain mills. The first institution of higher learning, Round Rock Academy, began in 1862. After the Civil War, the former trail and stage road became a prominent cattle drive route. In 1876, the International-Great Northern Railroad developed a new townsite east of the existing Round Rock. A commercial district sprang up along Georgetown Avenue (Main Street) with construction of many limestone buildings. “New Town” quickly eclipsed the established settlement, whose postal name changed again to “Old Round Rock.” For months, the new site was the railroad terminus, bringing lumber and flour mills, cotton gins, blacksmith and wagon shops, banks, hotels, restaurants, stores and schools. Round Rock challenged the state capital for economic control of central Texas, boasting six hotels to Austin’s five and serving as the retail hub for several counties to the west. The railroad also made Round Rock a more cosmopolitan place, bringing new residents from all over the U.S. And all around the world. Well-positioned for growth by its location on major transportation routes, Round Rock became one of the nation’s fastest-growing cities by the late 20th century. Two dozen commercial buildings in Round Rock’s historic downtown were listed in the National Register of Historic Places in 1983.

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Round Rock - The Chisholm Trail and the Old Settlers

1865

The round rock in Brushy Creek was a key Chisholm Trail low-water crossing. Trail laid out 1865 by Jesse Chisholm. First Williamson County drive: 1867, 35,000 head to Abilene, Kansas. Drives continued ~12 years; herds 100-40,000 head. Old Settlers Association of Williamson County chartered 1904, grown out of Civil War vet reunions; first reunion Sept 1904 in Georgetown, permanent Round Rock HQ 1931. Still operating; reunions at Old Settlers Park at Palm Valley.

Round Rock, Texas

Music in Round Rock

Songs About Round Rock

Artists From Round Rock

Rivers & Roads in Song near Round Rock

History of Round Rock

The Rock That Was an Address RoadyGoat

How Water Rounds a Rock RoadyGoat

Three Rocks and One Cycle RoadyGoat

Sam Bass - The Round Rock Shootout

Baylor Bus Crash of 1927

Bass, Sam

Round Rock - Round Rock Donuts (Since 1926)

Round Rock

Round Rock - The Chisholm Trail and the Old Settlers

Things to Do in Round Rock

Everything Near Round Rock