Purgatory

Hugo was just north of the Comal county line ten miles west of San Marcos in southern Hays County. In the 1800s it was named Purgatory or Purgatory Springs, for a nearby creek and springs. The Purgatory school opened on January 9, 1877, with seventeen students. A Purgatory Springs post office operated from 1890 to 1895, then changed its name to Hugo in 1896. The community, which at one time supported a church and a store as well as the school, declined in the early 1900s. The Hugo post office closed in 1909, and within a few decades the community was abandoned. The 1985 county highway map showed only a cemetery at the site.