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OPINION
Dear Editor, This morning I read Joe Christenson’s article in the September 18th edition of the Dripping Springs Century News. I was heartened to see that, thanks to his weather app, he was intrigued enough to discover the origins of Cannonville, the brainchild of William Rufus Cannon (c.18251857). Cannon’s attempt to relocate the Hays County seat from San Marcos to a more central location was actually the first of three such tries.
The next opportunity came in 1881 when the courthouse’s foundation was deemed unsound. The citizens of Wimberley’s Mill passed a resolution asking the citizens of Hays County to send a representative from each precinct to the Wimberley post office on Saturday, October 29, to appoint a committee to select a location for a new county seat. The San Marcos Free Press published a list of approximately 100 freeholders who asked the County Judge “to respectfully petition your honorable court to order an election for establishing of the county site of Hays county on the W. B. Travis survey on Flat Creek, about one half mile above what is known as Speed’s Crossing on Onion Creek, situated on the main road from Dripping Springs, Kyle and San Marcos, which is within five miles of the center of said county of Hays. To be known as Hays.”
On November 28, County Judge Edward R. Kone directed that an election be held on Saturday, December 31, 1881. Naturally the people of San Marcos were none too happy about the pending election. Championed by the editor of The San Marcos Free Press, Isaac Julian, they won the day. A new courthouse was built, ending the issue until it was badly damaged by fire in 1908. This led to the most ambitious attempt yet at relocation.
It was the idea of Hezekiah “Hez” Williams, a charismatic, hard-drinking preacher turned cattleman. His wife was schoolteacher and early cattle Queen, Lizzie (Johnson) Williams, whose father founded the Johnson Institute, a prestigious school on Bear Creek, where Radha Madhav Dham now stands. With Lizzie’s business acumen, the pair had acquired several ranches in the early 1900s, one purportedly including the geographical center of Hays County. Seizing the moment, Hezekiah decided to build a new county seat, named Hays City. He had the Hays County surveyor lay out lots on his ranch where the Kyle/Wimberley road met the one from Driftwood. An aggressive promotional campaign soon produced enough signatures to petition the Commissioners Court to call an election. San Marcos developer, Zachary Williamson, realized some help might be needed to counter the move. He produced more voters by selling a hundred 35’ x 50’ lots just north of the San Marcos city limits to landless citizens for a dollar apiece.
A number of names were struck off Hezekiah’s petition as ineligible, then, when Hezekiah claimed that Hays City was at the exact geographical center of the county, the County Judge informed him that the center was actually two miles northwest. The petition was thrown out, and there was no election.
Next time you drive past the Burke Center for Youth, the Double Crossing on Onion Creek, or Hays City Store, give a thought to how different Hays County would be, had any of these attempts succeeded!
J. Marie Bassett Member, Driftwood Historical Conservation Society’s Historical Committee Former member, Hays County Historical Commission
