Huntsville Springs

Duane's take

The official marker for Huntsville Springs tells it this way, and I'm just the man passin' it along. Now every town's got a beginning, and Huntsville's starts with a Kentucky man named Pleasant Gray — and that is a name worth saying twice. Pleasant Gray.

He and his wife Hannah, born a Holshouser, packed up their two children, left Tennessee behind in 1834, and by 1835 they had settled right here on land granted to them as part of Mexico's colonization effort. That's right — this was Mexican territory, and the land came by way of a formal colonization grant. The spot they chose wasn't arbitrary.

Natural springs sat nearby, and those springs had already been doing quiet, steady work for a long time. The Bedias Indians used them as a campsite. Immigrants passing through the region stopped there too.

Water has a way of drawing people in, and these springs were no different. Pleasant didn't settle in and sit still. He went into business with his brother Ephraim, and together they established a trading post near those very springs.

Then Pleasant did something that sounds almost modern — he subdivided his land into home and business lots and advertised the property. Not just locally, either. He ran those advertisements in Alabama, in Tennessee, in New Orleans, and in various steamboat offices.

Steamboat offices. The man understood where travelers gathered. Settlers arrived.

A town took shape. And Pleasant Gray gave it a name — Huntsville — after Huntsville, Alabama, a former family home. The springs that started all of this were notable enough that a British scientist and adventurer by the name of William Bollaert wrote about them in the Texas chronicles he kept during 1843 and 1844.

Bountiful, he called them. A British adventurer taking note of your town's water supply — well, that's a kind of fame. Huntsville was incorporated in 1845, and for many years after that, townspeople were accustomed to drawing spring water from a trough built right there near the source.

It was just the way things were done. But then came 1893 and 1894, and the city made a move. They dug an artesian well within a few feet of the original springs — close enough to shake hands with them — to supply water for municipal distribution and for an ice factory.

Modern infrastructure had arrived, and it didn't need the old trough anymore. Soon after, the watering trough fell into disuse. And the spring itself — the one that drew the Bedias Indians, the immigrants, Pleasant and Hannah Gray and their two children, the brother Ephraim, and a wandering British scientist — was boarded over.

All that history, quiet under a few planks of wood. But the springs were there first, and don't let anybody tell you otherwise.

What the marker says

Kentucky native Pleasant Gray and his wife Hannah (Holshouser) left Tennessee with their two children in 1834 and in 1835 settled here on land granted to them as part of Mexico's colonization effort. At that time natural springs located nearby served as a campsite for the area's native Bedias Indians and for immigrants passing through the region. After establishing a trading post near the springs with his brother Ephraim, Pleasant Gray subdivided his land into home and business lots and advertised the property in Alabama, Tennessee, New Orleans, and various steamboat offices. Settlers soon arrived and a town developed which Gray named after Huntsville, Alabama, a former family home. The area's bountiful springs were observed in the Texas chronicles written by British scientist/adventurer William Bollaert in 1843-44. Huntsville was incorporated in 1845. For many years townspeople were accustomed to using spring water captured in a trough near the springs. In 1893-1894 the city dug an artesian well within a few feet of the springs to provide water for municipal distribution and an ice factory. Shortly thereafter the watering trough at the spring fell into disuse, and the spring itself was boarded over.