Holland Springs

Samuel Ely Holland's public life ran from the Mexican War to the Populist revolt. He had served in the Mexican War under Samuel Highsmith and in John C. Hays's regiment before his brief time with McCulloch. In October 1852 he married Mary Scott, daughter of the first county judge, in the county's first wedding. He was county treasurer and commissioner, a Confederate frontier scout, a Granger and, by the late 1880s, a Farmers' Alliance delegate. Burnet and Lampasas counties sent him to the Twenty-fifth Legislature as a Populist. He died in 1917, a few weeks short of ninety-one.

What the plaque says

Holland Springs Indians had probably visited these clear, cool springs for centuries when, in 1847, Henry E. McCulloch established a Ranger camp here, on Hamilton Creek. A year later, Samuel E. Holland (1826-1917), a Georgian, decided while visiting the camp that this lush valley was an ideal setting for a farm and home. He thus bought 1,280 acres here to become the first permanent settler in what was later Burnet County. In 1849 McCulloch's Ranger camp gave way to Fort Croghan. This site eventually developed, through the efforts of Holland, into a busy pioneer community. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 8.0 mi
  A cave carved by an underground river in the Hill Country, cleared of mud by hand in the 1930s and reached down 52 stone steps on a guided tour.
• Inks Lake State Park — 8.8 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 9.6 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.
• Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge: Doeskin Ranch — 11 mi
  A free federal refuge north of Lake Travis kept for two songbirds that need old juniper and oak, with trails at the Doeskin Ranch unit near Bertram.

More markers nearby

• Magill Family Cemetery — 1.6 mi
• The Burnet Bulletin — 2.5 mi
• The Badger Building — 2.5 mi
• General Adam R. Johnson — 2.5 mi