Pre - 1848 |
The subject property is the 26 acres at the junction of Berry Creek and Ranger Branch on current FM 971 highway at County Road 194 in the City of Weir, Texas. The nearby landscape is dotted with historical markers commemorating the deeds of the Comanche and Tonkawa Indians, the Texas Rangers, and early Texas settlers. |
1848 |
Neighboring Georgetown to the west is founded when George Washington Glasscock donates land for the county seat of a new county formed by subdividing Milam County and forming Williamson County. In exchange, Glasscock was promised to have the town named after him. |
1850's |
The famous Chsiholm Trail passes only a few miles from the property. |
1856 |
Thomas Calvin Weir moves to Texas from Tennessee and settles on the property in 1856. He and his family are buried in a cemetery just on the opposite side of FM 971 in front of the current Tract C drive. The City of Weir is named for him. (See other Weir link.) |
| 1850 - early 1900's |
The community of Towns Mill gathered around a flour mill built just downstream in 1870. Eventually the town faded away like many area communities.
The Georgetown and Granger Railroad (later purchased by the Katy Railroad) was chartered in the 1890's and ran between the two towns. The railroad is no longer active. The Katy Crossing Flyer shows a 1928 railroad map and photo of the Katy Crossing Bridge over the San Gabriel just a few miles southwest of the property. There is another such bridge no longer in use passing over Berry Creek only a few hundred feet from the subject property. |
| 1900's - 1960 |
The forebears of Weir's only Mayor, Mervin Walker, owned the property in the early 1900's. The property was later owned by Gilbert Birkelbach, a Georgetown home builder, as a part of a larger tract upon which the next-door home to the east was his residence. In the 1960's, Birkelbach donated the subject 26 acres to the Lutheran Church, where they developed a summer camp. |
1960-80
Camp Shalom |
In the 1960's and 1970's (dates not certain), the Lutheran Church used this property as a summer camp named Camp Shalom. The camp water well has been re-worked and is in use today. There was a mess hall whose concrete slab is still in good shape and several tent sites, also on concrete slabs. Near Ranger Branch there were tree houses, which also still exist in poor condition. An amazing elevated steel cable foot bridge crosses Ranger Branch onto what we now call Tract B (the Waterfront Park). Current owners have crossed over it several times, but the bridge needs to be repaired. |
1980's - 2004 |
After at least one intervening owner following the close of Camp Shalom, Georgetown developer Bobby Stanton owned the subject property until the sale to the current owners in 2004. At one time, Stanton's daughter and her husband lived on the property in manufactured housing, which has since been removed. |
| 2004 - Present |
Current owners, Lawrence R. Bell and wife, Anne E. Bell, purchased the subject property on June 30, 2004. The house on the property and the commercial building on the highway were started late that year and occupied in July of 2005. |
