William Letchworth Hurst
Hurst, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1833-1922) A native of Tennessee, William Letchworth "Uncle Billy" Hurst (1833-1922) served in the Confederate army during the Civil War. As a member of the Sixty-First Tennessee Infantry, he was involved in fighting near Vicksburg, Mississippi. Following the surrender of his unit to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in 1863, and his subsequent release, he joined in the reorganization of his outfit as the Sixty-First Tennessee Mounted Infantry. Captured in December 1863 near Tazewell, Tennessee, Hurst spent the remainder of the war in military prisons in Kentucky and Illinois. In 1870 Hurst and his wife Mary (Lynch) (1835-1908) joined other residents of Claiborne County, Tennessee, who had migrated to Texas. By adding property to his first land purchase in 1872, Hurst became a prominent land speculator in the area. In 1903 he granted a right-of-way across his farm for the construction of a Rock Island rail line. In exchange, the company named a rail stop and depot for him. Later it became the town of Hurst. Honored for many years by his friends and relatives with festive birthday celebrations, Hurst was the father of 14 children and had over 100 grandchildren. Many family descendants still live in the area. (1981)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Tennessee-born William "Uncle Billy" Hurst fought for the Confederacy in the 61st Tennessee Infantry, surrendered near Vicksburg to Grant in 1863, and spent the war's final stretch in Northern prison camps after his capture in Tennessee. In 1870 he joined a migration of Claiborne County families to Texas, where he prospered as a land speculator. When he granted a right-of-way to the Rock Island line in 1903, the railroad named its stop for him—and the town of Hurst grew up around it.
Why it matters
His life traces the arc of the postwar South's westward migration and shows how the railroad's power to name a depot could quite literally put a community on the map.
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Related people
- · William Letchworth Hurst
- · Mary Lynch Hurst
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
I. D. Parker Public Cemetery and Homestead
Hurst, TX
Isaac Duke Parker, son of the noted early Texas politician Isaac Parker, settled near this site with his family in 1853. He served as a Tarrant County commissioner before enlisting in the Confederate army during the Civil War, then took over the family homestead and cemetery around 1867. Near the end of his life he set aside the eastern half of the burial ground — with more than thirty graves — as a public cemetery.
Smithfield Cemetery
North Richland Hills, TX
This cemetery began in the early 1870s when Eli Smith — the namesake of Smithfield, who came from Missouri to Texas around 1859 — gave part of his farm for a burying ground. Its oldest marked grave, an infant's, dates to 1872, and more than seventy-five graves come from that first decade, including Smith's own. Among those laid to rest here are pioneer physician Lilburn Howard Colley, for whom Colleyville is named, and Civil War veterans from both Union and Confederate armies.
Alfred Madison Hightower
N.Richland Hills, TX
Alfred M. Hightower arrived near Smithfield from Illinois in 1858 to ranch, and though he opposed secession, he cast his lot with the South once war broke out. As a Confederate mounted rifleman he fought at Elkhorn Tavern (Pea Ridge) in Arkansas, one of the largest battles west of the Mississippi. He tried Kansas in the 1870s before returning to ranch here until his death, leaving his name on a nearby street.
Dr. Lilburn Howard Colley
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Dr. L. H. Colley, a Union Army veteran of the Civil War, migrated with his wife from Missouri to Texas in 1880 and settled in the Bransford community in 1885, where he became a respected physician and school-district election official. When a grocery store opened near his home in 1914, Colley suggested naming the growing area Colleyville. The community he named eventually absorbed several neighboring settlements.