Lake Pat Cleburne

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, when you're driving through Johnson County, you might find yourself wondering about the water in your cup holder, and friend, that question has a story worth pulling over for. Lake Pat Cleburne.

Named to honor a famous Confederate general and leader of Texas troops, the kind of name a city doesn't slap on just anything. They saved it for this. Two thousand acres of water, sitting there calm and wide, holding the line against thirst for a whole city.

But a lake like that doesn't just appear. First somebody's got to ask the people. On August 14th, 1962, the city put a bond issue to a vote, three million two hundred thousand dollars on the line, and the people said yes.

That's how you start building something that lasts. Once that money was secured, the work began, and by October of 1964 the lake was completed. Two thousand acres of it, full and ready.

And the treatment plant they built alongside it, that facility handles a normal daily capacity of three million gallons of water. Every single day. Three million gallons, moving quiet and steady, doing what the whole enterprise was designed to do, keep a city alive.

Named for a general, built by a bond, filled by nature, and working every day whether anybody thinks about it or not. That's the kind of monument that doesn't need a statue.

What the marker says

Named to honor famous Confederate general and leader of Texas troops. Built to supply city water needs after $3,200,000 bond issue approved Aug. 14, 1962. Lake covers 2,000 acres of land. Treatment plant has normal daily capacity of 3,000,000 gallons of water. Lake completed in Oct. 1964. (1967)