Waters Park (also known as Waters and Watters) was a village located eight miles north of downtown

Austin, Texas Austin ( ) is the List of capitals in the United States, capital city of the U.S. state of Texas. It is the county seat and most populous city of Travis County, Texas, Travis County, with portions extending into Hays County, Texas, Hays and W ...

defined by the boundaries of Farm to Market Road 1325,

MoPac MOPAC is a computational chemistry software package that implements a variety of semi-empirical quantum chemistry methods based on the neglect of diatomic differential overlap (NDDO) approximation and fit primarily for gas-phase thermochemistry ...

, and the

Southern Pacific Railroad The Southern Pacific (or Espee from the railroad initials) was an American Railroad classes#Class I, Class I Rail transport, railroad network that existed from 1865 to 1996 and operated largely in the Western United States. The system was oper ...

. It is now part of the City of Austin. Waters Park Falls

Name

The village was originally known as Summers' Grove, and the origin of the name Waters Park is unknown.

History

The land at Waters Park was originally owned by Silas and Parthenia Summers who purchased the land in 1872. Right-of-way was sold to

Austin and Northwestern Railroad The Austin and Northwestern Railroad began construction on a rail line west of Austin, Texas, United States, USA, toward Llano, Texas, Llano on April 20, 1881. The railroad was originally built as a Narrow gauge railway, narrow gauge line with p ...

in October 1881. The railroad built a park with a swimming pool, gazebo, baseball field, picnic grounds, and concessions stands in the summer of 1882. The area's railroad tracks were used to transport pink

granite Granite ( ) is a coarse-grained (phanerite, phaneritic) intrusive rock, intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly coo ...

from Granite Mountain to the

Texas State Capitol The Texas State Capitol is the capitol and seat of government of the U.S. state of Texas. Located in downtown Austin, Texas, the structure houses the offices and chambers of the Texas Legislature and of the Governor of Texas. Designed in 188 ...

in Downtown Austin. Due to a bend in the tracks, trains would occasionally derail, accidentally dumping some of the pink granite. The rocks which remain are a local point of interest. The local post office opened in 1883 and closed in 1905.
The town was a popular vacation spot as it was easy to access via train from Austin. An advert in the June 14, 1882 edition of the Austin Daily Democratic Statesman read: The town proved historically to be Austin's fourth most popular day trip destination after the

Austin Dam The Austin Dam, also known as the Bayless Dam, was a concrete gravity dam in the Austin, Pennsylvania, area that served the Bayless Pulp and Paper Mill. Built in 1909, it was the largest dam of its type in Pennsylvania at the time. The catast ...

, Seiders Springs, and the then existent lake at Hyde Park.

References

{{coord, 30, 25, 05, N, 97, 42, 19, W, type:city_region:US-TX_source:GNIS-enwiki, display=title Geography of Austin, Texas History of Austin, Texas

Name

History

See also

References