DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Spring Hill, out in Navarro County. Now, every great Texas story starts with water. And this one's no different.
Long before a single settler drove a stake into Navarro County soil, springs right here at this spot were drawing people in. Indians had been coming to these springs for centuries — and you can't argue with a good, reliable spring in Texas. It tends to decide things before anybody else gets a vote.
Spring Hill is, to this day, the oldest community in Navarro County. Remember that. It matters later.
In 1838, a man named Dr. George Washington Hill — born in 1814 — built a trading post near those springs. He hadn't been there long when October of that same year brought trouble: a skirmish between a surveying party and Kickapoo Indians broke out right in this vicinity.
That's the kind of welcome that makes you take stock of your situation. Now, Dr. Hill was no ordinary frontier merchant.
He went on to serve as Secretary of War for the Republic of Texas under President Sam Houston — which is about as consequential a job title as the era had to offer. But here's the thing about a man who finds a good spring: he comes back to it. Around 1843, Dr.
Hill returned to Spring Hill, reopened that trading post, built himself a home, and began practicing medicine. The springs that had drawn people for centuries were drawing him back too. Then in January of 1847, his brother-in-law, Robert Harve Matthews — born that same year as Hill, 1814 — settled here alongside him.
A community was taking shape. On November 5th, 1849, a post office was established, with Dr. Hill himself as postmaster.
The next year, 1850, a building went up that pulled double duty as both church and schoolhouse — because in a young Texas community, you handle the soul and the mind in the same room and consider it efficient. By 1855, Matthews had opened a store. The Civil War years brought something different to Spring Hill: a Confederate training camp was located right here.
And then came the 1870s — the height of it all. Spring Hill was humming. General mercantile stores, blacksmith shops, saloons, a drugstore, a hotel, a masonic lodge, a flour mill, a cotton gin, and a rock quarry.
That is a town with ambitions. That is a town that fully intends to be around forever. And then — 1881.
The Cotton Belt Railroad came through Navarro County, and it did not come through Spring Hill. It bypassed the community entirely. Now, railroads in 1881 didn't just carry freight.
They carried futures. And when that line went somewhere else, Spring Hill's future went with it. The decline that followed was quiet and long.
The post office, that institution Dr. Hill had opened back in 1849, closed its doors on June 15th, 1906. Today, what remains of Spring Hill is a cemetery and a few foundations bordering streets that nobody walks anymore.
The springs that started it all — that drew centuries of people to this exact spot — outlasted every store, every saloon, every ambition the town ever had. That's water for you. It doesn't need a railroad.
What the marker says
Oldest community in Navarro County. The springs at this site supplied water to Indians for centuries before white settlers arrived. In 1838 Dr. George Washington Hill (1814-60) built a trading post near the springs, and in October of that year a skirmish between a surveying party and Kickapoo Indians occurred in this vicinity. After serving as Republic of Texas Secretary of War under President Sam Houston, Dr. Hill returned here about 1843, reopened the trading post, built a home, and began practicing medicine. In Jan. 1847, his brother-in-law, Robert Harve Matthews (1814-94), settled here. A post office was established on Nov. 5, 1849, with Dr. Hill as postmaster. A building erected in 1850 served as both church and schoolhouse; by 1855, Matthews had opened a store. During the Civil War, a Confederate training camp was located here. At the height of its growth, in the 1870s, Spring Hill boasted general mercantile stores, blacksmith shops, saloons, a drugstore, hotel, masonic lodge, flour mill, cotton gin, and rock quarry. Decline began in 1881, when the community was bypassed by the Cotton Belt Railroad. The post office closed on June 15, 1906. The cemetery and a few foundations bordering deserted streets remain to mark site of Spring Hill.