Hostess House

Hancock Park was Baptist-owned when camp meetings filled it, and the evangelist William Evander Penn preached revivals on the banks of Sulphur Creek. Penn was a Tennessee lawyer and Confederate officer who moved to Jefferson, Texas, in 1866. Asked to preach a revival at Tyler in 1875, he was licensed by his Jefferson church and ordained at Galveston in 1880. Called the "Texas Evangelist," he also held revivals in other states and in Scotland and England, and he compiled the hymnal Harvest Bells in 1881.

What the plaque says

Hostess House Mineral springs such as nearby Hancock Springs flow into Sulphur Creek, providing Lampasas with waters for recreation and health. The Hancock Springs tract became a fashionable tourist attraction and convention and encampment site in the late 19th century; by the 1880s, Lampasas advertised as "The Saratoga of the South." In 1911, Dan Culver excavated a large open-air swimming pool in Hancock Park, utilizing spring-fed waters. Charles Baker and L.N. Little bought the property in 1929. Materials from the Texas Baptist Encampment dining hall were used to build the Hostess House south of the pool. The two-story frame building included a reception hall and changing room for the swimming pool, with an open-air dance platform on the second floor. Local bands and nationally known performers made the venue a popular destination. In 1936, the city of Lampasas bought the park, including the Hostess House. During World War II, the U.S. government leased Hancock Park as a recreation area, called Panther Park, for soldiers stationed at Camp Hood (later Fort Hood). In 1947, a golf course opened to the west and improvements to the Hostess House included a limestone veneer. After additional renovations to park facilities in 1948, Texas Governor Beauford Jester and U.S. Congressman Lyndon Johnson attended a rededication ceremony. For many years following, the people of Lampasas continued to swim in the pool and attend dances and proms on the second floor. By the 1990s, the building had fallen into disrepair. The city leased the building to the Oran Milo Roberts chapter of the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, which coordinated fundraising to renovate and restore the Hostess House and continue its public use. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 0.2 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 — 18 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.
• Inks Lake State Park — 24 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 — 26 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.

More markers nearby

• Hancock Springs Bathhouse — steps away
• Hancock Springs — 0.2 mi
• The 1957 Flood — 0.3 mi
• Cook Cemetery — 0.5 mi