Burnet County began with a namesake, a new government, and a short-lived colony

Texas created Burnet County on February 5, 1852, from parts of Travis, Williamson, and Bell counties. Voters organized the county on August 28. They named it for David G. Burnet, who had served as the first president of Texas in 1836.

A different kind of settlement was already taking shape nearby. In 1851, Lyman Wight led twenty Mormon families to the area. They built homes, mills, and furniture shops, making a small working colony beside the new county government.

The colony did not last. Wight and most of the group left in 1853 after a flood and other trouble. The county stayed, and the old settlement became one strand in a place that was still deciding what kind of Hill Country community it would be.

That close timing gives Burnet County's start some texture: a Texas namesake, a courthouse government, and a self-built colony all sharing the landscape for a brief moment.