Lone Stars: Llano, Texas

The Llano County courthouse, built in 1893 and still in use.
Llano (pronounced LAN-oh) is located in the Texas Hill Country about an hour north of Austin, very near the geographic center of Texas. Founded in response to a legislative act creating Llano County in February 1856, the town was established June 14 of the same year. A public vote under a live oak tree on the south side of the Llano River chose the town's location: a tract of 250 acres donated by a local rancher.

The area boomed from 1886-1893 after iron ore deposits were discovered in nearby Iron Mountain. With high hopes for the future, the Llano Improvement and Furnace Company embarked upon a mission to build an iron furnace and foundry. Land speculators from Dallas and northern states poured into the area with investment money, wanting to be part of "the Pittsburgh of the West." The population soared to 7,000 in 1890, encouraging the Austin and Northwestern Railroad to extend its line to a terminal on the north side of what promised to be a thriving metropolis. Increased access to transportation attracted granite quarying and finishing companies intent on profiting from the abundance of granite in the surrounding hills.

Then the bubble burst: The iron ore deposits proved insufficient for commercial exploitation, and the Llano Improvement and Furnace Company abandoned its project. The company's withdrawal threw the town's big plans into disarray. Although charters had been sold to construct a dam, an electric power plant, a streetcar system, and electric streetlights, only a small dam and the streetlights were completed. Speculators and local businesses lost fortunes as a result.

A wagon hauls a slab of granite through the streets
of Llano in this undated postcard photo.
A series of fires in the early 1890s, probably set to collect insurance money, destroyed much of the town; consequently, insurance companies refused to provide any coverage in the area for a number of years.

The granite processors remained. Today, Llano's primary industries are farming, ranching, and granite quarying and finishing. The town's population is roughly 3,000 people except during November and December, when the undisputed "Deer Capital of Texas" overflows with hunters.

6 comments :

  1. Cindy Nord July 18, 2012 at 12:15 PM

    Always love your delightful articles, Tex. Amazing research contained nicely inside an entertaining, informative piece.

    Wonderful
    ♥
    Cindy

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  2. Alison E. BruceJuly 18, 2012 at 12:50 PM

    It's got a lovely courthouse. It looks prime for a movie location.

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  3. UnknownJuly 18, 2012 at 12:55 PM

    Thanks, Owl! I enjoy discovering the backstory, and Llano is just one of those places that makes visitors wonder how it came to be what it is today. :-)

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  4. UnknownJuly 18, 2012 at 1:08 PM

    That's another thing about Texas, Alison: It's full of astonishingly beautiful architecture in the most out-of-the-way places. I don't know whether Llano's courthouse has been used as a movie set, but plenty of others in similar Texas towns have been. Movie-making has become big business in Texas during recent years. Austin is often referred to as "the Third Coast" because the film and television industries have established significant presences there. SXSW (South by Southwest) started out as a tiny little music festival in Austin in 1987, and now it's a major international exhibition and trade show for the movie, music, and interactive technology markets. (None of that has anything to do with Texas history, but I thought I'd throw it in anyway. :-D )

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  5. Kirsten LynnJuly 18, 2012 at 6:45 PM

    Another great post, Kathleen! I always find boom towns interesting, how a flood of people can descend on an area and then in what seems a blink the town is down to nothing. And in this case what a surprise to the citizens to have all the plans for the city and then poof the company abandons the town and you.

    I agree with Alison, the courthouse is magnificent.

    --Kirsten

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  6. UnknownJuly 19, 2012 at 9:13 AM

    Thanks for visiting, Kirsten! Always nice to see a Wyoming rustler around the place. ;-) Maybe I'll do a series of posts about Texas courthouses. Quite a few Texas courthouses are on the National Register of Historic Places, and some of them are still used for their original purpose. A couple make you wonder "What were they thinking?" And a few are downright scary. :-)

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