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History of Hutto
Hutto, Texas was
established in 1876 when the
International & Great Northern Railroad passed through land owned by James Emory Hutto. The railroad of cials designated the stop “Hutto Station” and the town of Hutto was born. James Hutto was born in Alabama on June 8, 1824. He came to Texas in 1847 and moved his family into Williamson County in 1855.
It was in 1876 that Hutto sold fty acres to the Texas Land Company of New York for a town site and railroad right of way. Cheap prison labor was used to build the railroad tracks under the Texas prison lease system that was in effect at that time.
Hutto became a wealthy cattleman in Williamson County; however, in 1885 he left Hutto and moved to Waco and entered the hardware business. No direct descendants of the Hutto family live here today.
A freed slave, Adam Orgain, was also an early settler in the immediate vicinity and homesteaded earlier in 1854. Indians still abounded in the area. Soon a great many more people, primarily Swedish and German immigrants came to this area to farm, ranch and begin new lives in America.
A depot was built in 1877. On June 19, 1886 a severe storm hit the small town and wiped out the south side business district including the rst
school (built in 1882) and the Baptist Church (built in 1883). It was not until 1890 that a real rebuilding effort took place, this time on the north side of the railroad tracks. By 1892 two rows of store buildings surrounded East Street, the new main street of downtown Hutto. During the early 1890’s, Hutto prospered and grew due to the fertile blackland soil that permitted tremendous cotton activity. Saturdays were an extremely active time in
downtown Hutto with people and horse drawn vehicles everywhere. The comment was made by an observant citizen that; “No one had better get in a hurry in Hutto on a Saturday because you just couldn’t move fast through all the crowd in town.” It was reported that a merchant once took in $5,000 on a Saturday in his Hutto store.
By 1898, thanks to the industry of
its people and its strong agricultural base, the town of Hutto was bustling and had grown to support six churches, one school, one photography gallery, one confectionery store, one hotel, two
drug stores, seven
dry good stores, one bank, one tailor shop, one shoe shop, four blacksmith,
eight grocery stores (including one meat market), one livery stable, one millinery shop, one lumber yard, one newspaper, two hardware stores, two cotton gins, one grist mill, and ve doctors.
In 1902, a re destroyed almost all of the businesses on the east side of East Street in the downtown area. This re decimated much of the business of downtown Hutto as the north half of the east side of the street was destroyed. The re started when a gasoline stove exploded in the Jackson Restaurant.
On July 17, 1911 the town was of cially incorporated and W.D. Holman, a member of the Swedish Evangelical Lutheran Church, served as the rst mayor of the City of Hutto. Another Swede, Charles E. Hanstrom, Sr. played an extremely vital role in the development of early Hutto. Hutto might not have
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Hutto Area Chamber of Commerce • www.huttochamber.com