Town of Eagle Lake

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the town of Eagle Lake, out in Colorado County. Now, some towns get their names from grand battles, famous men, or rivers older than memory. Eagle Lake got its name from a bird.

Back in 1821, an exploring party riding with Stephen F. Austin came upon a lake in this corner of Texas, and somewhere along the way they killed an eagle. That lake took the name, and eventually, so did the town.

Fast forward thirty years. By 1851, a man named Gamaliel Good, a resident out here, decided this lakeside location was exactly the right place to anchor something ambitious. He started a stage line running from Houston all the way to San Antonio, with his headquarters sitting right there on the lake.

That is a serious stretch of Texas to connect, and Good was the man connecting it. He wasn't done. In 1856, Good teamed up with a fellow named D.

W. C. Harris, and together they platted the Eagle Lake townsite.

Drew it up, laid it out, made it official. A town on paper, and soon enough, a town in fact. Then the railroad arrived.

The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos and Colorado Railroad reached Eagle Lake in 1859. When the rails come to town, things tend to move a little faster, and Eagle Lake was no exception. The town built itself up as a cattle and farm market in those early years.

Then, after 1898, rice production moved in and changed the character of the place. Later it ranked as an oil center, and it shipped sand and gravel. The town had a talent for reinventing itself, finding the next thing the land and the market could offer.

These days, the marker calls it a fishing and goose hunting mecca. Not a bad reputation to carry. And Eagle Lake has one more distinction worth mentioning.

It is the home town of General H. H. Johnson, born in 1895.

In the 1940s, Johnson served as military governor of Rome, Italy. A boy from a Texas lake town, and he ended up governing one of the oldest cities on earth. Eagle Lake has a way of producing people who travel far.

What the marker says

Named for lake where in 1821 exploring party of Stephen F. Austin killed an eagle. In 1851 resident Gamaliel Good started a Houston-to-San Antonio Stage line with lakeside headquarters. In 1856, with D. W. C. Harris, Good platted Eagle Lake townsite. The Buffalo Bayou, Brazos & Colorado Railroad reached here in 1859. Early a cattle and farm market; after 1898 had rice production; later ranked as oil center and shipper of sand and gravel. Now fishing and goose hunting mecca. Home town of Gen. H. H. Johnson (born in 1895), military governor of Rome, Italy in the 1940s.