Site of Lometa Reservoir
Lometa, Lampasas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Remains of facilities at the site of Lometa Reservoir (Santa Fe Lake) are evidence of the role the Santa Fe Railway Co. played in area development. Lometa was established as a railroad town in the mid-1880s. When a second rail line came through in 1909, the railroads needed a water supply for steam locomotives. Completed in 1911-12, a dam backed waters of Emory and Salt Creeks, and the resulting lake provided water for the trains and became a recreation area. The need for water declined as diesel engines replaced steam locomotives in the 20th century. The reservoir was taken out of service in the 1970s, but a new dam and lake were later built. (2005)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Lometa began as a railroad town in the mid-1880s, and when a second line arrived in 1909 the railroads needed water for their thirsty steam locomotives. A dam completed in 1911–12 backed up Emory and Salt Creeks into a lake—known as Santa Fe Lake—that watered the trains and doubled as a recreation spot. As diesel engines replaced steam, the need faded, and the reservoir was retired in the 1970s.
Why it matters
The site captures how the age of steam railroading reshaped the Texas landscape, and how the shift to diesel quietly rendered such infrastructure obsolete.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Scholten Railroad
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From about 1912 to 1920, the Scholten Brothers Cedar Company ran a 25-mile narrow-gauge railroad from Lometa into San Saba County, built by Dutch immigrants Edward and Alfred Scholten. The little line hauled cedar posts and piling to the Santa Fe main line at Lometa, feeding the fencing and construction needs of a fast-growing West Texas. At its height the operation employed some 500 workers, with headquarters just west of this spot.
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Goldthwaite boomed after the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway reached Mills County, and by 1888 the growing county seat needed a bank—so D.H. Trent opened a private one with a few thousand dollars in deposits. Through decades of reorganization it became the state-chartered Trent State Bank in 1908 and, in 1952, the Mills County State Bank. It marked 120 years in business in 2008, having weathered hard times and expanded into neighboring towns.
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In the mid-1800s word spread of the curative mineral springs at Lampasas, earning the town the nickname "Saratoga of the South." After the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad arrived in 1882, investors built the Grand Park Hotel and this bathhouse, with hot and cold baths and separate pools reached by a mule-drawn streetcar. Floods eventually carried off the roof, but the limestone walls endure beside the turquoise, spring-fed pool, now part of a city park.