DUANE
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Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to honor every word. Way out in San Saba County, there's a place called Harmony Ridge, and the name alone ought to tell you something about the people who built it. The community was founded in the eighteen seventies, and among the very first families to put down roots there were the Olivers, Andrew, Mark, and Polk.
Alongside them came Stephen M. Lewis, William Faver, Matt Senterfitt, and Asa J. Howard.
Picture that handful of families looking out over the Texas Hill Country and deciding, together, that this was the place. Now, a community needs more than good intentions. It needs a gathering place.
So in eighteen seventy-seven, the citizens came together and built one, a two-story frame structure that did double duty, housing both the Cumberland Presbyterian Church and the local school under the same roof. Andrew and Mark Oliver gave the land, not just for the building, but for a cemetery too. And here's the part worth savoring: the community got its name, Harmony Ridge, because of the way those people worked together on that very construction.
Harmony wasn't just a word somebody plucked out of the air. It was the thing they actually did. The building stood tall with that second story for decades, until nineteen eleven, when the upper floor was removed.
Then in nineteen sixty, a brick veneer was added, so the old structure changed its look twice over the years, but it kept standing. The community itself has gone quiet, inactive now, but there's one thread still holding. A cemetery group meets yearly.
Out there on land the Oliver brothers gave, folks still show up. Still gathering. Still, in their own way, working in harmony.
What the marker says
Founded in 1870s. Among first settlers were the families of Andrew, Mark, and Polk Oliver; Stephen M. Lewis; William Faver; Matt Senterfitt; Asa J. Howard. The only building (a two-story frame structure housing Cumberland Presbyterian Church and local school) was built by citizens in 1877. Andrew and Mark Oliver gave land for building and cemetery. Community got its name because people worked in harmony on construction. Second story was removed in 1911 and brick veneer was added in 1960. Cemetery group meets yearly although community is inactive.