Lampasas Spent a Few Years at the End of the Railroad

Lampasas had a boom that arrived by rail. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe came from Belton in the spring of 1882 and made Lampasas its western end. Wool and cotton moved through town, land prices rose, and the estimated population reached 3,500. Buildings went up too slowly, so some newcomers lived in tents.

The mineral springs gave rail travelers a reason to stay. Investors built the Park Hotel near Hancock Springs, and a mule-drawn streetcar linked the depot to the resort. A national bank opened in 1884. On July 23, 1885, thirty-one bankers began a three-day meeting at the hotel to organize the Texas Bankers Association.

The same railroad that made the boom also ended it. Work resumed west in the mid-1880s, and much of the temporary population followed the tracks. Lampasas kept its courthouse, springs, freight trade, and county-seat work, but its turn as the end of the line was over. For a few years, tents, bathhouses, bankers, wool bales, and passengers all belonged to one small city.