Wilson Springs

Wilson Springs (also called Mill Hollow and Mustang Springs) was on Mustang Creek two miles northwest of Taylor in southeast Williamson County. John Gooch, the first settler, built a water-powered gristmill in 1849 and called the site Mill Hollow. The property passed through several owners until it was bought by John S. Wilson in 1856, and the community was eventually named Wilson Springs, after the various members of the Wilson family who settled there. Charles B. Wilson was said to be the first Williamson County sheep rancher to use telegraph wire as fencing, and a rock house erected by the Wilson family in 1860 was still standing in 1973. A gin was built around 1880, and the Wilson Springs school served thirty-nine pupils in 1903. The community had a population of twenty in 1940. The school was consolidated with the Hutto and Taylor schools in 1949, and Wilson Springs was no longer on the county map in 1988.