The Round Rock

The rock is a table-shaped stone in the middle of Brushy Creek. The Texas Historical Commission marker, put up in 1975, says it identified a low-water wagon crossing, with wheel ruts in the creek bed, and that the rocky streambed supplied building stone for pioneer homes. A post office called Brushy Creek opened in 1851. Thomas C. Oatts urged the name Round Rock in 1854, and the Handbook gives August 24, 1854, for the change.

The Handbook says Oatts and Jacob Harrell, who opened a blacksmith shop in 1848, suggested the name because they often fished from a large anvil-shaped limestone rock in the creek. Cattle drivers bound for Kansas followed the Chisholm Trail across Brushy Creek near the rock, and the street through Old Town was later renamed Chisholm Trail. The marker sits on a limestone bridge support on that road.

The railroad arrived in 1876, and the town moved about a mile east along it by 1877. Old Town's early buildings included the Harris Stagecoach Inn of 1848 and Oatts's store and post office of 1851. Sam Bass was shot in Round Rock on July 19, 1878, died July 21 and was buried in the Round Rock Cemetery; our marker for Ranger R. C. Dick Ware tells that shooting.