A Mule-Drawn Streetcar Once Carried Visitors to Hancock Springs

Rail passengers once crossed Lampasas by mule-drawn streetcar to reach Hancock Springs. The line ran two miles from the train depot to the Park Hotel near the mineral springs. That short ride linked the new railroad to a resort built to keep travelers in town.

After the railroad arrived in 1882, investors built a bathhouse with changing rooms, hot and cold baths, and separate pools for men and women. Period ads credited the mineral water with healing powers. That was resort promotion, but it helped sell Lampasas as a place to stay rather than a town to pass through.

The 200-room Park Hotel stood northwest of the bathhouse, linked to the springs by a boardwalk. The building later housed Centenary College and burned in the mid-1890s. Sulphur Creek also flooded the bathhouse more than once. Its roof was gone by 1920, while the limestone walls remained.

Lampasas bought the springs property in 1936 and stabilized the old bathhouse walls in 2003. Today, the three-acre Hancock Springs Park still includes a spring-fed, free-flow pool. The hotel is gone, but the spring, pool, and stone walls still explain why a streetcar once crossed town.