Hudson Bend

Duane's take

The way I tell it, I'm drawing straight from the official marker on Hudson Bend — so let's let the record do the talkin'. Now, 1854. Picture a man named Wiley Hudson, born in 1825, loading up his family and setting his sights on a bend in the Colorado River.

Nobody was callin' it Hudson Bend yet, but give it time. That's where they put down roots, right there on the curve of that river, and the land took his name the way land does when a family works it hard enough. By 1860, the census takers came through and found four families holdin' on in that vicinity.

Wiley was there with his wife Catherine and eight children. And just down the way — his father James, running a household of his own. Two generations of Hudsons already dug into that bend of the Colorado.

Then the Civil War arrived, as it arrived everywhere, and it did not spare Hudson Bend. From 1861 to 1865, Wiley Hudson took up arms for the Confederacy. So did his two brothers — both of them chaplains — and other relatives besides.

A family sends its men to war, and some bends in a river go quiet for a while. But life along the Colorado had its own rhythm before and during all of that. Three river fords gave the pioneers a way across the water — and they used them.

Cross the Colorado, get your corn ground at Anderson Mill, maybe ride on to socialize with families over in nearby settlements like Round Mountain and Nameless. Three crossings keeping a community stitched together across that river. The years kept rolling.

By the 1890s, maps were showing a church and a school sitting at Hudson Bend. Of the twenty-four original surveys made on the four-thousand-acre tract they called Hudson Bend, four of those surveys were acquired by the Hudson family themselves. Four out of twenty-four — not a majority, but a mark.

And many of their descendants still live in the area to this day. Now here's where the story takes a turn that a lot of Texas river-bend stories take. In the 1940s, Mansfield Dam was completed.

Lake Travis rose. And when it rose, it swallowed about half the acreage of Hudson Bend. The cemetery — the place where the community had laid its dead — had to be relocated, moved out to Teck.

The ranches among the cedar and live oaks, the farms along the river bottom, all of it replaced by subdivisions and recreational areas. But Hudson Bend didn't vanish. A new Hudson Bend community grew up along the lake shores, with a number of active civic organizations finding their footing there.

The water took half the land and all of the old shape of things, and the community rebuilt itself around what the water left behind. Wiley Hudson picked that bend in 1854. The lake swallowed part of it in the 1940s.

And people are still there. Some things, it seems, a river bend just holds onto.

What the marker says

In 1854 Wiley Hudson (b.1825) and his family settled on the bend of Colorado River that was named for him. The 1860 census showed four families living in this vicinity, including Wiley Hudson with his wife Catherine and eight children, as well as a household headed by his father James. During the Civil War (1861-1865), Wiley Hudson, his two chaplain brothers and others relatives took up arms for the Confederacy. Three rivers fords enabled the pioneers to cross the Colorado to grind their corn at Anderson mill and to socialize with families living in nearby settlements such as round mountain and nameless. Maps of the 1890s show a church and school at Hudson Bend. Of the 24 original surveys made on the 4,000-acre tract called Hudson Bend, four were acquired by the Hudson family. Many descendants still live in the area. After completion of Mansfield Dam in the 1940s, the waters of Lake Travis flooded about half of the acreage. The cemetery was relocated at Teck. Ranches amid the cedar and live oaks and farms along the river bottom were replaced by subdivisions and recreational areas. A new Hudson Bend community grew up along the lake shores with a number of active civic organizations. (1978)