Hanna Springs
Lampasas, Lampasas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Famous health spa and resort of early Lampasas. These sulphur springs were first exploited by John Hanna, member of a locally prominent family. Hundreds came to camp and take the healing waters. As reputation of area grew, the Central Texas Town Co. was formed to promote park, 1884. A convention hall was built, and the 1892 State Democratic Convention, meeting here, voted to support Grover Cleveland for U.S. President and nominated James Hogg for Governor. (Both men won.) Hanna Hall was later converted into an opera house. The resort closed after 1900.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
These sulphur springs, first developed by John Hanna of a prominent local family, drew hundreds who came to camp and take the healing waters in early Lampasas. As the resort's fame grew, the Central Texas Town Company formed in 1884 to promote the park and built a convention hall. There, the 1892 State Democratic Convention backed Grover Cleveland for president and nominated James Hogg for governor — both of whom won — before the hall became an opera house and the resort faded after 1900.
Why it matters
Hanna Springs shows how a frontier health resort could briefly become a stage for state and national politics during the boom years of Gilded Age Texas.
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Related people
- · John Hanna
- · Grover Cleveland
- · James Hogg
Related events
- · 1892 Texas State Democratic Convention
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lampasas County
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Lampasas County was organized in 1856, formed from Travis and Bell counties as Anglo settlement pushed up the Texas rivers in the years before the Civil War. Its name derives from Lampazos, the Spanish name for the local river, said to refer to the cockle-burs that grew thickly along its banks. First settled around 1850, the county grew steadily and gained its first railroad in 1882, with the town of Lampasas as its seat.
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In 1873, Lampasas was a raw frontier town where authority was thin and firearms were everywhere. When Governor Edmund J. Davis's Reconstruction-era State Police tried to enforce a ban on carrying sidearms, a confrontation inside Jerry Scott's saloon erupted into gunfire, leaving four state policemen dead. The killings drew in Texas's Minute Men companies and a manhunt for the Horrell brothers, who fled to New Mexico before returning to stand trial and win acquittal in 1876.
Horrell-Higgins Feud
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Four years after the saloon shootout, Lampasas County exploded into one of the most notorious blood feuds in Texas history. Beginning with cattleman Pink Higgins's 1877 killing of Merritt Horrell over accusations of rustling, the feud raged for six violent months of ambushes and street battles until the Texas Rangers forced a written truce. The reconciliation held on paper, but the feud's true end came in 1878 when a vigilante mob killed Tom and Mart Horrell in their jail cell.
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