Adamsville

The Handbook of Texas adds other early figures. Joseph Leland Straley built one of the first houses in the area, and in the 1870s the community put together small cattle drives that moved herds short distances to join the big trails north. Some of the first public surveying in the county was done on nearby Simms Creek in the late 1870s, and the surveyors suffered several Indian attacks. After the mill accident of 1891 the Townsens sold the mill, and the whole building was moved to Hamilton County. Adamsville had twenty-eight people in 1972 and forty-one in 2000.

What the plaque says

Adamsville The first permanent settlers came to this area shortly before Lampasas County organized in 1856. Oliver Hazzard Perry Townsen bought 640 acres from Samuel Horrell, Sr. and his wife Elizabeth in 1868. Townsen grew wheat and established a flour mill, and in 1876 became postmaster of Townsen Mills southeast of this site near the Lampasas River. An 1884 business directory noted that the community included steam flour and saw mills, three churches and a school, a doctor, wagonmaker, and general store. After Townsen died in 1891 in a mill accident, a new post office opened at the Smith and Adams general store. John T. Adams, first postmaster of Adamsville, and the Rev. McCall Smith were business partners at the store. In the late 1880s, Rev. Smith and 19 charter members met in L. Jasper and Mary Ann Townsen's home to organize Pleasant Valley Cumberland Presbyterian Church, now Adamsville Presbyterian Church. Samuel and Fannie Straley platted Adamsville in 1908. A newspaper article the following year mentioned Adamsville's ice house, Ladies' Missionary Society, Literary Society, and Woodmen of the World Camp. Straley's School (c. 1885) was also the church for Baptist and Presbyterian congregations. County commissioners created Adamsville School District No. 15 in 1908 and trustees built a new schoolhouse; a larger 1922 schoolhouse was destroyed by fire in 1942. Adamsville consolidated with Lampasas schools in 1964. The Adamsville Community Building was originally a G.I. vocational school for veterans of World War II. J. W. Mitchell organized the Adamsville Volunteer Fire Department about 1967. Adamsville has evolved from a frontier settlement to an active rural community with ongoing events such as church activities, twice-monthly fiddling jam sessions, and community barbecues to welcome hunters during deer season. 175 Years of Texas Independence * 1836-2011

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 17 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Colorado Bend State Park — 26 mi
  Old ranch country on the Colorado above Lake Buchanan, where a spring-fed creek drops 70 feet over fern-covered travertine at Gorman Falls.

More markers nearby

• United Presbyterian Church of Adamsville — steps away
• Townsen's Mill — 1.2 mi
• Birthplace of Stanley Walker — 5.1 mi
• Atherton School — 6.3 mi