WALNUT SPRINGS, TEXAS

      

Picture taken from the 112 ft elevation of the water storage tank on the south edge of town looking north.

The town of Walnut Springs, which is located 60 miles south west of Fort Worth and 60 miles north west of Waco in a broad valley at the top of the Hill Country, was established officially in the mid 1880's as a railroad town.  During it's peak in the early 1900's, the population peaked at over 2000, with railroad shops, numerous small businesses, banks, theaters, a college, a public school, and a hospital within its city limits. When the railroad shops closed and the Great Depression hit, the town's population decreased to a low of around 425 in the mid 1960's.  As construction on the Comanche Peak Steam Electric Station, a pressurized water reactor nuclear electric generating facility located about 5 miles north of Glen Rose, Texas, began to gear up in 1974, the population started to slowly climb and has continued to climb and is now officially 755.  At the end of the CPSES construction, the town and surrounding, area continued its slow population growth as families moved from the Fort Worth/Dallas Metroplex area seeking a rural. small town, small school environment for their children. The Walnut Springs Independent School District has an enrollment of approximately 200 students and competes in six-man football, boys and girls 1A basketball, and UIL.  It has consistently had an above average scholastic training because of its small size and good teacher to student ratio.  The town presently has a lumber and hardware store, a cafe, convience store with self-serve gas, a metal recycling center, several antique dealers, a hand crafted items store, an automotive repair garage, two beauty salons, plumbers, and independent contractors.  Other businesses in the area of Walnut Springs but not in the town itself include  Wiley Clarkson's Computers & Communications,  Linda Clarkson's Computer Services,  and Color Spot, Inc. The area surrounding Walnut Springs has been largely agriculture for many years with a number of large ranches, such as The Flat Top Ranch, The Midnight Angus Ranch, and Pal Verde Ranch, just to name a few.  The town has three churches (Walnut Springs Baptist Church, Methodist, and Pentecostal), a Masonic Lodge, and a volunteer fire department.  The city park on Steel Creek has the only remaining continuously flowing springs and native walnut trees for which the town was named.  The town and surrounding area has moderately low property taxes, reasonable property evaluations, reasonable property prices and a lower than average crime rate.  For more information on the town of Walnut Springs, contact the town secretary at (254) 797-3721, weekdays between the hours of 9 a.m. and 4 p.m.  If you are interested in history and would like to read a history of Walnut Springs and see a large selection of pictures from the early days of the town, go by your local library and ask for Bryan N. Sowell's book, "Texas Central Headquarters, Walnut Springs."  Bryan is a long time local resident and is an English teacher at the Glen Rose High School. 

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this page last updated 11-05-2003 by Wiley Clarkson