Rock House

Rock House is on Farm Road 3405 and the North San Gabriel River, three miles northeast of Liberty Hill, in western Williamson County. Draco, the Indian name for the village that occupied the site before White settlement, means "favorite place." Dates on cemetery graves indicate that settlement began before 1871, but the site became a distinct community about 1878. The name Rock House is from a Baptist tabernacle constructed of rock before 1878 by early settlers, and the names Draco and Rock House seem to have been used interchangeably into the 1890s. The Rock House school also existed by 1878, when it was designated a tax collection point for the area; a political meeting was held there that year, apparently to organize support for prohibition in the local option vote. By 1890 the community had a store, and a post office with the name Draco operated from 1890 to 1892. A cotton gin operated on a farm just across the river. The Rock House school was one of the larger rural schools in Williamson County in the early decades of the twentieth century. In 1903 it had ninety-six pupils and two teachers, and in 1922 a new two-classroom school served seventy-four students. The school was consolidated with the Liberty Hill school in 1947. A Texas Historical Marker honoring the community was erected in 1981. Rock House remained a dispersed farming community in 2000. No population estimates were available. The main landmark was the Rock House Cemetery.