Kingsland Had a Railroad Life Before Lake LBJ

Kingsland began as Kingsville, named for Martin D. King. King and J. M. Trussell bought land at the meeting of the Llano and Colorado rivers in 1877. A cotton gin and small trading center followed in the 1880s.

The Austin and Northwestern Railroad reached the settlement on its way to Llano in 1892. Its bridge crossed at the two-river junction, and the depot stood between the tracks. By 1901, the town was called Kingsland, and the railroad's Antlers Hotel was receiving train passengers. The hotel's porches looked toward both rivers; its grounds included cabins and a cottonwood park with a pavilion.

Rail traffic later declined, and a 1922 fire deepened the town's slump. Water changed the trajectory. The dam later named Wirtz Dam impounded Granite Shoals Lake in 1951; the reservoir became Lake LBJ in April 1965.

Highland Lakes recreation and retirement growth had revived Kingsland by the mid-1960s. The same river junction supplied two different engines for the town: railroad tracks in 1892, then a managed lake in the 1950s.