Holt

Holt is south of Ranch Road 502 and four miles northwest of Skeeterville in northwestern San Saba County. The area was probably first settled in the late 1880s by the Leonard Asbury Hardman family. To acquire neighbors, the Hardmans offered a homesite to anyone who would move to the area; Garrett and Florence Burk were the first to accept this offer. Soon the Bill Holt family arrived and opened the first store. As more families began to settle in the area, the community gained a general merchandise store, school, church, blacksmith shop, gristmill, and cotton gin. The Holt post office, named in honor of the Holt family, was open from 1900 to 1918. A new school was erected around 1905 to replace the Antelope Gap or Antelope Creek school, which had been moved to the new community and renamed Holt. In 1933 the population of Holt was reported as twenty-five, and it remained at this level until 1947, after which no further population statistics were available. In 1947 Holt had only a store and a school. Eventually its school was consolidated with the Richland Springs schools. The Missionary Baptist church built at Holt in 1971 was still active in the community in 1983.