People had been aware of the Lampasas springs long before the town was built around them. A legend has been told of St. Juan, who led an expedition from San Antonio in 1735; it was a very dry year, and there was no water at all in the Colorado River. His party had split up to search for water, and everyone was about to die of thirst, when the frustrated priest threw his crucifix to the ground and cursed the inhospitable land. Water came bubbling up out of the earth at the exact place where each of the men lay dying. According to the legend, the expedition was saved and the springs were born.

We know that Indians (and huge herds of buffalo) had been frequenting the springs long before 1735, but it was probably then that they (and the nearby river) were named Lampasas. Some say that Lampasas is an Indian word for water lilies; others say that a Spanish soldier was reminded of the Mexican town Lampazos.

The True Issue, a newspaper in LaGrange, published a very interesting letter on August 18, 1855. A reader had been to Lampasas, and reported on the original sale of town lots July 4.

“The scenery is rather picturesque and romantic, than grand or wild,” the observer reported. “There are at present about 75 tents, besides eight or ten dwelling cabins, which contain an average of about four inmates, I suppose.” “There is a market open at all times with the necessaries, and some luxuries.”

“All in all, a pretty fair village,” the writer concluded. “Resembling, I presume, a ‘big digging’ in California. (Remember, this was soon after the Gold Rush of 1849.)

Just two years earlier, in 1853, Moses and Nimrod Hughes had brought their families from the relative safety of Williamson County to the wilderness surrounding the springs in what is now Lampasas County. Moses Hughes had heard Indians tell of the healing powers of the springs, and was determined to see if they would help his ill wife. Within three weeks o ...

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