Townsen's Mill

The mill family became one of the county's most prominent clans. Oliver Hazard Perry Townsen came to Texas in 1854 and settled in Lampasas County the next year, and three Tennessee nephews followed him. In 1861 one of them went back for his widowed mother and seven younger brothers, among them eleven-year-old Jim. Jim Townsen became president of the county Farmers' Alliance and in 1894 won a seat in the Texas House as a Populist, one of twenty-four Populists in the 1895 legislature, losing Burnet County by six votes and carrying Lampasas County handily.

What the plaque says

Townsen's Mill Built on Mill Branch in 1872, Perry and Jasper Townsen's steam mill cut "rawhide" lumber and ground wheat and corn. Post office established 1881 moved in 1891 to Adamsville store of John Adams and The Rev. McCall Smith. Mr. Smith built, and was pastor of, earliest Presbyterian church there. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 16 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 — 1.1 mi
• Adamsville — 1.2 mi
• Birthplace of Stanley Walker — 4.4 mi
• School Creek Baptist Church — 5.3 mi