Willis, Texas

Everything Willis is known for

2 songs mention this city 7 artists from here

Music in Willis

Songs About Willis

My Kind of Place
Cannon Brand
80%
"I'm cruising down 75, my kind of Friday night drive"
That 45 (Willis)
Ned Gray
78%
"That 45 (Willis)"

Artists From Willis

P
Payton Howie
country
C
Cannon Brand
country
R
Rick Sousley
country
J
John Gentry
country
C
Caroline Woodfill
country
M
Maddie Mae
country
T
Tex S. T.
hip-hop

Rivers & Roads in Song near Willis

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Willis.

Interstate 45 8 songs U.S. Route 59 9 songs Trinity River 11 songs Kickapoo Creek 4 songs Brazos River 42 songs US Route 90 9 songs

History of Willis

The Cuban Cigar Capital of Texas RoadyGoat

For a brief, strange stretch in the 1890s, Willis, Texas, was famous for cigars. It started earlier than you'd think — Captain Thomas Wesley Smith, a Civil War veteran and former sheriff, moved his mercantile here in 1872 and got into tobacco. Then in 1891 a local farmer named John Blum had a spectacular year with the Vuelta Abajo variety, grown from seed brought out of Cuba and planted in the local sandy soil. That was the proof. Farmers switched crops, and at the height of it as many as seven or eight cigar factories were rolling leaf right here in Willis, with up to ninety percent of all the tobacco grown in Texas coming from inside a five-mile circle around town. Willis leaf took awards in Chicago and Paris. But the boom was short-lived. When the tariff on Cuban tobacco was lifted and wages climbed, the business couldn't compete, and by the early 1900s it collapsed as fast as it had appeared — leaving behind a fascinating, smoke-filled chapter in the town's history.

RoadyGoat →

The Midnight Ride for the County Records RoadyGoat

Willis held the county courthouse, and it held it for six years. Montgomery had been the seat of Montgomery County since 1837, but when the first railroad missed Montgomery, everything changed. Willis was brand new on those tracks, laid out in 1870 on land the Galveston merchants Peter and Richard Willis had donated to the Houston and Great Northern, and in an 1874 vote this town took the county seat away. Six years later, in 1880, Montgomery took it right back. Willis went on to make its name a different way, as a tobacco town with as many as seven cigar factories running until a change in Cuban tariffs killed that trade early in the next century. And in 1889 the courthouse moved one last time, to Conroe, a young town sitting where the International-Great Northern crossed the newly built Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe. Three county seats in fifty years, and every single move followed a railroad.

RoadyGoat →

Engineering a Lake, Remaking a Town RoadyGoat

Just west of Willis lies a massive piece of engineering that reshaped this entire region: Lake Conroe. This isn't a natural lake. It was deliberately designed and built in the early 1970s. The project's primary goal was to create a reserve water supply for the city of Houston. Engineers from the San Jacinto River Authority designed an enormous earthen dam, over two miles long, to stop the flow of the West Fork of the San Jacinto River. When the gates closed in 1973, water slowly inundated 21,000 acres of forest and farmland, creating the reservoir you see today. This single infrastructure project had huge consequences. It not only secured water for a distant city but also completely altered the local hydrology, created a new lakeside ecosystem, and sparked a recreational and real estate boom that transformed Willis from a quiet farm town into the growing lakeside community it is today.

RoadyGoat →

Powell, William P.

1872

Remaining portion of 13-room house built in 1872 by carpenter Sid Inglet. Powell-- a pioneer physician, Confederate veteran-- married Miss Mary Eugenia Thompson, 1863, in Waverly; six of their 12 children born here. He traveled by horse and buggy to visit the sick; used home as office and improvised hospital until his death, Nov. 6, 1915. Purchased in 1946 by justice of the peace, R. M. Jordy. Site of 119 wedding ceremonies. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967

Historical Marker →

Barnes, Ned Eastman

1905

Ned Eastman Barnes, African-American inventor, son of Smith Barnes and Silvia (or Slyvia) Barnes, was born in January 1866 in Walker County, Texas. Both of his parents were from Alabama; they lived in Walker County for several years before Ned’s birth. They had a large family: five sons and three daughters. The Smith Barnes family moved to Willis, Texas, by 1870. Ned Barnes attended public school for just four or five years. While still a child, he was employed as a house boy by the T. W. Smith-Owen A. Smith family. Willis later became, for several years, a tobacco-growing and cigar manufacturing center. Owen Smith built a three-story brick plant to manufacture cigars in Willis; the plant employed more than 100 workers ( see WILLIS CIGAR FACTORY ). In 1885 Ned Barnes married Ada Johnson. Barnes acquired a 160-acre farm outside Willis, farmed the land, and joined the Farmers’ Improvement Society . Around 1900 he built a family home, cutting most of the timber himself that he then used in building the house. Beginning in 1905, Barnes applied for and received ten U.S. patents on inventions (including one in which he was co-inventor), several of them having to do with railroads. His first patent (no. 792,109), for a sand band to protect the hubs of wagon wheels, was granted on June 13, 1905. His final patent (no. 1,673,729), for a pole, post, and tree protector, was issued on June 12, 1928. In 1913 Barnes opened an office in Houston, about forty-five miles south of Willis, to work on his inventions and his patent applications; it was located at 308 St. Emanuel Street. Barnes assigned one-half of his 1910 patent no. 969,592 to Owen A. Smith (whose family had virtually raised Barnes) and one-fourth of it to Willis public school principal H.A. McDonald. The two men probably were investors in that invention by Barnes. Barnes’s railroad inventions included a brace to maintain the distance between train rails, an electric projector to display train arrival and departure times, a railway tie plate, and a hot-box cooler and oiler. One patent (no. 1,124,879), for an automatic film-mover, was granted to its two co-inventors, Berger Edmond of Houston, and Ned Barnes. Two of Ned and Ada Barnes’s children died young. Their three surviving biological children, all sons, attended what is now Prairie View A&M University. Ned and Ada Barnes also adopted a daughter. Two of the sons became school teachers, and the other, James, became his father’s personal secretary and assistant. Ned Eastman Barnes died in Montgomery County on November 14, 1950. He was a deacon of Antioch Missionary Baptist Church in Willis and superintendent of the church’s Sunday school. He also was a Mason and a member of the Knights of Pythias .

Tsha Handbook →

Danville

1836

Founded before 1840 as trade center, rich plantation area. Many prominent families had Texas beginnings here. At peak, town had 15 businesses, several churches, good schools; refusing right-of-way to Houston & Great Northern Railway in 1870s, lost its people and commerce to new town of Willis, on the railroad. Sheperd Hill Cemetery (at this site) is all that remains of the once-thriving town. Claim to enduring fame lies in memory of Jonathan Lindley, a Danville man who lost his life defending cause of Texas at the Alamo, March 6, 1836.

Historical Marker → · 4.4 mi away

Willis Cigar Factory

1865

Following the Civil War, area farmers found the climate and soil conditions of Montgomery County were ideal for the production of tobacco. The varieties grown here were of the highest quality, winning international awards in Chicago and Paris. At the height of local tobacco production, there were eight cigar operations in Willis. One, the Willis Cigar Factory, was located at this site. Founded by Kentucky native Capt. Thomas Wesley Smith (1829-1901), a Civil War veteran and former sheriff, it remained in operation until the early 1900s. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986

Historical Marker →

Danville, TX (Montgomery County)

1838

Danville, an East Texas settlement four miles west of New Waverly on the old Houston road in northern Montgomery County, was reported to be flourishing as early as 1838 and again in 1850. Danville was on the lower Coushatta Trace and was perhaps named by Samuel and Joseph Lindley , who moved their families to this area from Danville, Illinois, in 1830. At its height in the mid-1800s, the community had about 1,000 residents, 600 of whom were slaves. It had fourteen businesses, including two blacksmith shops, two mercantile stores, and an inn, as well as a cotton gin, general store, saloon, saddle shop, hotel, and grocery store. The town hosted Sam Houston at a barbecue on September 11, 1858. Most of Danville's businesses and many of its residents moved to the new railroad town of Willis in 1870. When the old Houston road (later U.S. Highway 75) was rerouted through New Waverly, the Danville economy was further damaged. This area of northern Montgomery County and southern Walker County was the scene of substantial Polish settlement in the late 1800s ( see POLES ). In 1872 Father Orzechowski led the effort to establish Sts. Peter and Paul Catholic Church in Danville. Though this church was abandoned in the 1920s, its site is commemorated by a bell and a historical marker in Danville, while the original church building serves as a hay barn on a nearby ranch. The loss of the church and highway led to the decline of Danville. In the 1980s it was a small, quiet, rural community.

Tsha Handbook →

Tobacco Culture

1879

Three important species of tobacco grew wild in Texas, one of which, Nicotiana tabacum , is the species to which most modern commercial tobaccos belong. The consumption of tobacco, by means of cigarette and pipe smoking, was a universal custom among the Indians of Texas before the arrival of the Spaniards. The Indians gathered and cured the wild tobacco and also cultivated it in small patches. Early American settlers in Texas introduced several varieties of Kentucky and Tennessee tobaccos that were grown on farms and plantations for home consumption. In 1850 the state produced 66,897 pounds of tobacco. In 1879 Cuban cigar-leaf tobacco was grown successfully on a commercial scale near Willis in Montgomery County, but after a few years commercial production in that area ceased until 1891, when it was renewed with considerable success. A large crop was raised in 1892, and warehouses and a cigar factory were established at Willis. The industry prospered and spread to other counties in East Texas but eventually failed because of impractical methods of growing and handling. Some interest in tobacco culture was revived between 1900 and 1904, when the United States Department of Agriculture discovered that East Texas was capable of producing a high-grade cigar leaf that equaled the imported Cuban product. The department established a demonstration and experimental farm at Nacogdoches, and experimental plantings of tobacco were made throughout East Texas. A total of 425,000 acres in this region was found suitable for tobacco growing. Tobacco packing houses established at Nacogdoches and Palestine processed and shipped the Texas tobacco to cigar manufacturers in other states. A cigar factory at Nacogdoches made cigars from Texas tobacco. The tobacco industry in East Texas declined rapidly after 1910, as rising cotton prices made cotton a more profitable crop than tobacco. By 1940 annual tobacco production for the state had fallen to 2,715 pounds, and in 1945 only three farms reported tobacco acreage. In 1948 three tobacco manufacturers were operating in Texas, but no acreage was reported. In the 1950s there was no commercial production of tobacco in the state. By 1965 one tobacco processor was operating but reported no estimated acreage. In 1969 only two companies in Texas were manufacturing tobacco. By the late 1980s tobacco was neither being grown nor processed in Texas except at the H. W. Finck Cigar Company of San Antonio, founded in 1893, which continued to market its own brand of cigars.

Tsha Handbook →

Things to Do in Willis

spooky 17.9 mi away
Demon's Road & Martha Chapel Cemetery

Texas's most haunted road. An 1830s cemetery on Bowden Road near Huntsville where cars rock on their own and handprints appear on windows.
quirky 21.0 mi away
Cowboy Boot House

A 35-foot-tall house shaped like a cowboy boot built from salvaged materials by artist Dan Phillips and completed in 2017. He added a matching…

Sports in Willis

⭐ HOMETOWN LEGENDS Class 6A · Football

Willis Wildkats — Willis — a college & pro athletic pipeline

6 alumni who reached major-college or pro sports

Willis High School, a Class 6A institution, has a history of athletes who have gone on to compete at major collegiate and professional levels. The Wildkats' athletic program has seen several of its own make their mark beyond high school. Among them is Hubbard Law, who played as an offensive lineman in the NFL. James McKeehan also transitioned to the NFL as a tight end, showcasing the varied talents emerging from Willis.

The tradition continued with Michael Bishop, who played as a quarterback in the NFL. D. D. Terry, a running back, also represented Willis High School in the NFL. More recently, DJ Lagway is a quarterback for both the Florida Gators and the Baylor Bears, while Jermaine Bishop Jr. plays wide receiver and cornerback for the Texas Longhorns, pointing to a continuing legacy of athletic talent.

Pro/D1 alumni
6
Class
6A
Founded
1996
Key Players
  • Hubbard Law — (1939), former NFL offensive lineman
  • James McKeehan — (1991), former NFL tight end
  • Michael Bishop — (1995), former NFL Quarterback
  • D. D. Terry — (2003), former NFL Running back
  • DJ Lagway — (2024), quarterback for the Florida Gators and the Baylor Bears
  • Jermaine Bishop Jr. — (2026), wide receiver and cornerback for the Texas Longhorns
The moment

Michael Bishop played as a quarterback in the NFL.

Sources: Wikipedia · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near Willis

376 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Willis on the Map
All music from Texas → · Browse more cities