History of Lacy Lakeview
Lacy Lakeview is a growing community, which lies on the north border of Waco, Texas. We are a proud community with a rich history. Our history begins with Neil McLennan.
Neil McLennan 1787--1867
Neil McLennan was born on September 2, 1787, in the Highlands of Scotland, and immigrated to America with his family in 1801, settling in North Carolina. In 1816 he moved to the Spanish province of Florida, where he engaged in farming with his brothers, John and Laughlin. On January 14, 1835, these three families embarked on a small schooner for Texas, arriving at the mouth of the Brazos River, up which they proceeded as far as Fort Bend where their vessel was wrecked by striking a submerged snag. They then proceeded overland to Pond Creek in present Falls County, where they settled.
The following winter Indians killed Laughlin McLennan and several members of his family and captured his children; the other families moved down to Nashville-on-the-Brazos for security. John McLennan was killed by Indians in 1838. Neil McLennan was a member of George B. Erath's Milam County "Mounted Volunteers," engaged in Indian scouting and warfare in 1839,when he first saw the territory that was to become McLennan County. He stopped to survey land and in 1845 returned to the South Bosque River, built a house and planted crops, thus becoming the first white settler in the Waco area, west of the Brazos River.
Here he lived until his death in 1867. When the new county around Waco was organized in 1850 it was appropriately named McLennan in his honor.
Jacob Walker ( 1805--1836 )
Jacob Walker was born in Columbia, Tenn. in May of 1805. He later moved to Maury County, Tenn. He came from a very adventuresome family. Sam Houston was his cousin, and one of his brothers was the famous mountain man ( Joseph R. Walker ) who was one of the first guides to California. Joseph Walker has rivers, lakes and mountains named for him. Jacob had another brother named Jack Walker and his fathers name was John Walker.Jacob Walker moved to Louisiana and met Sarah Ann Vauchere and they were married in November of 1827. They had two children while in Louisiana and Jacob had a farm there. He then moved to Nacogdoches, Texas were they had five more children.
In 1835, Sam Houston stopped in Nacogdoches and persuaded his cousin to join the army because they were giving land to the soldiers. Jacob's first battle was the storming and capture of Bexar, December 5 until December 10, 1835. The siege of Bexar was a crucial event in the history of Texas. It brought Santa Anna at the head of his army to retake San Antonio and Texas, and men indecisive about their future as Mexican citizens or Texans were moved irrevocably to independence.
After the Siege of Bexar, Jacob remained in Bexar as a member of Carey's artillery company. This was his duties during the battle of the Alamo. He was a gunner until the end.
According to Susanna Dickinson, Jacob Walker was the last man to die at the Alamo. Jacob Walker, the gunner from Nacogdoches after there were no more balls left to fire, plugged his cannon with scraps of cast iron and broken pieces of chain and fired at the Mexican soldiers. A Mexican officer trained a force of muskets on them and they became major targets. Jacob Walker, who had remained by his cannon until his wounds kept him from firing his cannon, leaped from the ramp, and dashed to the side of Mrs. Dickinson in one of the chapel side rooms. Within moments, the Mexican soldiers broke through the old doors. The bloody fighting was fierce, but brief. It is beleived that Jacob was attempting to ignite the main powder magazine which would have blown the Alamo to pieces, but because of his injuries crawled to Mrs. Dickenson and begs her to take a message to his wife Anna, he then turned to face the Mexican hordes. Susanna Dickenson said the Mexican soldiers shot and bayoneted him to death as she looked on. The soldiers pitched him around on bayonets, as they would a bail of hay. Susanna was one of a few that was spared during the massacre.
Jacob Walker died on March 6th, 1836 and is considered to be the last man to fall at the Alamo.
Sarah Ann Vauchere Walker ( 1811--1899 )
Born Sarah Ann Vauchere in Louisiana on April 16th, 1811, this future pioneer was the youngest child of the French aristocrat Joseph Vauchere. At the age of sixteen she married a Louisiana landowner named Jacob Walker and two years later moved to East Texas with him. Sarah had seven children--three girls and four boys in the nine years before the Texas Revolution. In 1836, Jacob Walker left his family to defend the Alamo and was, according to one of the survivors, Suzanna Dickenson, the last man to die there. Dickenson said that Jacob had spoken to her several times during the siege "with anxious tenderness" about his wife and his four sons, and at the end she "saw four Mexicans toss him up in the air as you would a bundle of fodder ) with their bayonets, and then shot him." In the dark days when General Sam Houston and a rag-tag band of volunteers were being hectored northward by the forces of Santa Anna, it seemed that any additional difficulty might finish the revolution altogether. The widowed Sarah achieved fame herself when she answered the call for a volunteer at a patriots meeting held in Nacogdoches. The patriots wanted General Sam Houston warned that the Cherokees had been incited by the Mexicans to ambush the Texas army from the rear as it retreated from the forces of General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna. A tiny woman only four feet eight inches tall and twenty-five years old, Sarah beleived that she could pass through enemy lines disquised as a boy and set off on horseback. She rode for day across a sparsely settled area where hostile Indians hunted, Mexican solders marched, and many other dangers for a lone woman existed. Three hundred miles later, Sarah reached the town of Gonzales, located Houston and his army, and gave him the intelligence that allowed his army to avoid the Cherokees.Less than a year after her husbands death, Sarah married his cousin Jim Bob Walker. Being widowed on the frontier was a common female experience and, because the majority of the population was male, quickly remarrying was an established custom.
For the valiant sacrifice made by her husband ( Jacob Walker ), a grateful Republic of Texas issued to her Headright Certificate Number One, deeding to her "a league and a labor" ( about 4,416 acres ). The certificate was signed by President David G. Burnet, who held the office of President from March 16th, 1836 to October 22nd, 1836. The certificate did not locate the grant of land until February 1, 1841. Col. Leonard William's, first Indian Commissioner of Texas, located the grant of land for her. The Walker Grant was east of the Brazos River, beginning at a point slightly north of the mouth of the Bosque River and extending past White Rock Creek. The property also stretched east beyond Tehuacana Creek.
Sarah planned to move there from Nacogdoches after the birth of her eight child but delayed because she quickly became pregnant again. The move of the household,slaves, and stock began during this ninth and final pregnancy, and Sarah was determined to have the birth on the Brazos. The baby came earlier, however, and was delivered "somewhere on the Sabine Trail". Before Sarah could establish her family on the new land, her second husband died, and the 1850 Census listed her as "family head, occupation farmer". It was not unusual for survivors in the West to marry three or four times, but Sarah chose not to remarry again.
With considerable temerity Sarah assumed responsibility for settling her newborn infant, a one year old, and her seven older children in the wilderness of Central Texas. She built her log cabin on high ground facing the Brazos River and enjoyed the benefits of fresh water from nearby springs, fertile black soil,and Indian peach trees. With many people looking for land, Sarah lived by selling off parcels of her land grant. Early documents record that she and four of her children sold 130 acres on the Brazos for $ 3,660.00 and that she also leased some of her land and rode horseback to collect rent from her tenants.
Sarah Walker not only endured; she prospered and replaced her cabin with a two story Greek Revival structure with large porches in the front and back. For years hers was the only house north of the Waco Indian Village on the Military Road, and travelers frequently stopped to drink from the cool spring waters and rest their horses. Indians came by also, but did not attack, perhaps because Sarah gave them gifts of food. The two oldest Walker daughters married and left home soon after they moved to the Brazos, and two of the sons and one daughter died before 1855. A third son ( John ) moved into a small cabin away from the family house and lived a secluded life. The 1870 Census listed him as male, thirty-eight years old, with no property of his own, and "an idiot whose privilege to vote had been discontinued." The other three children lived on the Walker plantation until the Civil War, when another son was killed in the Battle of Bull Run and the youngest daughter married.
Sarah Ann Walker continued alone while the Military Road became the old Dallas Highway and the family cemetery behind her house filled with her children. As she aged, she became an increasingly devout Catholic and worshipped regularly at home. As hardy a pioneer as the West had, Sarah witnessed the extension of the frontier into Texas, participated in the Texas Revolution, saw Waco Village born, and almost lived to see the turn of the twentieth century. She died peacefully at home on December 10th, 1899, at the age of eighty-eight. She was buried in the family cemetery behind her house and what is now known as the Walker-Stanfield Cemetery.
Stanfield-Walker Cemetery
The Stanfield-Walker Cemetery is located in the town of Lacy Lakeview, Texas, on the east side of North Lacy Drive on U.S. Hwy 77-81, between Stanfield Drive and Avenue-C . In 1844, when Sarah Walker settled on her Headright Certificate Number One, land that was given to her for compensation for the death of her husband Jacob Walker, who was reported to be the last man killed in the Battle of the Alamo, the cemetery known now as Stanfield-Walker Cemetery was originally the family cemetery for Sarah Walker's family. Sarah Walker was born on April 16, 1811 in Mississippi and died on December 10, 1899. Over the years, not only have the family members of the Walker family been buried there, but also it is reported that there were cowboys buried in the cemetery that died moving cattle up the Chisholm Trail which ran through the Walker land.Walker 's family cemetery became the Stanfield-Walker Cemetery when Sarah Walker's daughter ( Margaret ) married Francis Stanfield. Margaret Walker was born on July 18, 1832 and died on March 8, 1923 . Francis Stanfield was born in 1847 and died in 1869 . He was probably killed by outlaws, as the LaVega grant to the south of the Jacob Walker grant was a "no-mans land" and a notorious hideout for criminals. Family members from both the Walker and Stanfield families are buried in the cemetery.
Jim Bob Walker's grave is the oldest grave in the cemetery and is walled in with native sandstone blocks. The marker shows he died in 1850. Their are two unmarked stones, very old native sandstone, which are probably some of the "Walker" descendants. Ada Stanfield was first Stanfield to be buried in the Stanfield-Walker Cemetery. She was the daughter of Margaret ( Walker ) Stanfield. Ada Stanfield was born on January 23, 1875 and died on July 23, 1876 .
Chisholm Trail
Over the past century, the Chisholm Trail has been all but forgotten. Houses, trees and golf courses stand where once it was as clear as an Interstate highway. Some of it is still open pasture, some of it has been plowed countless times to plant wheat, cotton or other agricultural products. Barbed wire fences have shredded what remains of the tiny trail into tiny pieces.Because Texas is were the longhorns were, that is where the trials began. The Chisholm Trail was named after Jesse Chisholm, a Cherokee Native American. He was a trader, interpreter, guide and businessman. He had already traveled the trail numerous times, hauling freight in wagons that were pulled by oxen from Kansas to stock his trading post--or rather trading posts that extended to the Canadian River. It is said that he was the first to create a chain of convenience stores.
In the early years, Jesse Chisholm in his bartering with the Indians, was principally interested in securing furs and buffalo robes from the Indians, but had to accept some cattle for his goods. When he had gathered several hundred head of cattle, he would drive them to Ft. Gibson.
Texas Longhorns were descendants of cattle brought over by the Spanish. Whatever the genetic background, the fact remains that the longhorns were left alone to survive in the wilds of northern New Mexico and southern Texas while the men went away to fight each other in the Civil War. Nature converted the once domesticated animal into a lean and hardy breed, fully capable of defending itself against most predators with its long horns and sharp hooves. The end result was a breed of cattle resistant also to disease and drought, that flourished until it numbered in the millions.
At the end of the War Between the States, a seemingly endless supply of longhorns existed. Thousand were killed for the tallow and hides---a good cowhide might bring as much as $ 3.00 . Markets for the entire animal were rare, but if the cattlemen could get their product to Chicago, a market was waiting for them there---paying as much as $ 35 to $ 40 a head. The cattlemen rounded up longhorns, cropped their ears, branded their hides, and drove them north across the Indian Nations into Kansas. The trip was not easy and the cattlemen had to deal with unhappy farmers and ranchers, prohibitive laws and uncooperative weather. When the cattlemen arrived at Kansas or Missouri with their herds, they had to deal with roving bands of ex-soldiers who called themselves Jayhawkers or red-legs, and who enjoyed murdering Texans.
The first year that the Chisholm Trail was used to move cattle north, an estimated 260,000 head of cattle were driven towards Kansas or Missouri, but only about half reached their destinations.
The Chisholm Trail extends from Brownsville at the southern most part of Texas and extends north through Texas, Oklahoma and ends in Kansas. The trail ended at one of four locations in Kansas ( Dodge City, Hays, Ellsworth or Abilene ).
The Chisholm Trail also came through Waco, Texas on its way north. Cattlemen stopped along the Brazos river, and some camped on Sarah Walkers Plantation. It is said that Sarah Walker allowed them to graze there cattle and rest up on her land. History also records that some of the cattlemen that died on the trial are buried in the Walker-Stanfield Cemetery in unmarked graves. The trail was abandoned in the 1880's , as the land along the route was settled and cattle were shipped by rail. Somewhere along the way, without intending to do more than work for a hard day's pay and board, they created the legend of the American cowboy.
First Schools
Josiah Frost had a 320 acre farm in 1860 from which he donated a block of land on which Frost School was erected. This was the first school in the community. It was a log cabin built on the plot of land now owned by the J. H. Montgomery family. The log cabin school was moved from it's original site to a location across from the Dallas Highway in front of the Alamo Steel Co. and later burned. A new school was erected where the log cabin had stood. This building was a one room school known as "Frost School" and the school remained there until 1915--16 when a four room, two story red brick building was built in the Lakeview Addition on land donated by C.C. Shumway, a Realtor. who developed the Addition. This school burned on two occasions during 1939. The school was rebuilt with aid from the WPA except for the gymnasium which is still in use today. The school was replaced again in 1964.From its early beginning as Frost School on the west side of town, through good times and bad. the school system always had the support of the community. Lakeview consolidated with Elm Mott in 1950--51 . The school at Elm Mott, still in use, was built in 1920. The new school district was called Connally Consolidated School District. At that time, school was only taught to the tenth grade. Soon after consolidation, a High School was built on a fifteen acre tract of land and named Connally High School. The area developed rapidly during the next few years and it became necessary to build another elementary school. This school was built on the fifteen acres and named Northcrest Elementary School in 1961. On April 8, 1974 a fire destroyed the high school except for the gymnasium and Home Economics building. As in times before when schools burned or were torn down, the local churches were used for class rooms until the school could be replaced. The school district bought additional land adjacent to the junior high complex that was built in 1965 to build a splendid new Connally High School. This building was completed in 1976. The Connally Schools are highly recognized scholastically and academically. The Community has a lot of pride in the schools splendid record in sports and scholastic achievements.
Lacy Lakeview
Lacy, Texas. Lacy, in central McLennan County, was named for William David Lacy who initiated the growth of the farming community by selling lots near the present intersection of Craven Street with Interstate Highway 35 during the 1880's. Lacy at that time was on a mail route from Waco and became on of the interurban stops in the county. The Frost school, the first school in the area, was named for the Frost estate which gave the two acres for the school in 1915. Lacy reported a population of forty in 1930 and 1940 and fifty in 1947. It merged with the community of Lakeview to form the incorporated city of Lacy Lakeview in 1953.Lakeview, Texas. Lakeview , in central McLennan County, was named for it's location near some spring-fed lakes and was built along the lines of the Texas Electric Railroad. In 1915 the Lakeview school replaced the Frost school at Lacy and was incorporated in 1927. The community was developed during and after World War II with the expansion of the James Connally Air Force Base. Lakeview reported three businesses and an estimated population of seventy in 1947. The city merged with Lacy to become Lacy Lakeview in 1953.
Lacy Lakeview, Texas. On August 1, 1953, the residents of Lacy Lakeview and nearly points in a two-square mile area voted to incorporate as Lacy Lakeview. An earlier attempt to incorporate the two former interurban stops had failed the preceding year. Frank Mosely, who spearheaded the move for incorporation, was elected the first mayor of the city in 1953. Lacy Lakeview, which has the mayor-city council form of municipal government, is a general law city and does not have a charter since its population does not exceed five thousand. Two major residential districts in the area are the Connally Addition and the W. Morris Mosely Addition. The city present water system was founded by the J.C. Passmore family in 1949. In addition to Mosely, the following have served as mayor of Lacy Lakeview: Morgan C. Harrell, A.C. Reed, and John D. Heffelfinger. The population of Lacy Lakeview in 1970 was 2,558.
Spring Lake Country Club
One of the highlights of the past was the Spring Lake Country Club. It was an elegant resort for Waco's wealthy to relax and entertain in the 1930's. It boasted a golf course, swimming pool, tennis courts and stables. The lakes were a favorite place for the members to visit their summer lodges built there.The big club house was impressive and elegant with it's dinning hall, big fireplaces, dressing rooms, locker rooms and the second floor ballroom; like scenes you have seen in movies. But, like the passing of time, this era too faded away. The club house stood imposing over the country side and silent lakes until it was condemned and torn down about 1974. The Club had long since been closed. The Air Force had used the site just briefly in the 1950's for an officers club, but deterioration took over. The property has now been developed into a subdivision with beautiful homes spotting the lovely terrain.
Northcrest
Northcrest, Texas. Northcrest in central McLennan County north of Lacy Lakeview, was incorporated in February 1958. So named for its location north of Waco and for its elevation which is the highest in the Waco area, Northcrest had a population of 625 in 1960. By 1963 the city's population reached its peak of 2,150 but began to decline when the James Connally Air Force Base was closed. With the completion of Interstate 35 , more permanent residents have moved into the area and commute to jobs in Bellmead and Waco. The Connally Independent School District is in the city limits of Northcrest, but the school system serves Elm Mott and Lacy Lakeview, as well. Some years ago the school building suffered a disastrous fire, but it was rebuilt and today the district has a good school building and staff. Northcrest also includes an area which was developed fifty years ago as Spring Lake Country Club. The club has long been closed, but the area includes some nice homes. Northcrest reported a population of 1,669 in 1970 and had approximately nine to ten businesses in 1972. The city has a mayor-city council form of government, a volunteer fire department, police department, city zoning and planning commission, and a street department. The following men have served as major of Northcrest: Herschel Curtis, Billy F. Casper, Eugene Gerlich, Alvis L. Williams, Bill R. Mash, Billy Nash, and Henry E. Slovak.Things I remember most about my life in Lacy Lakeview By: Alice Carey Hodge
(excerts from this book) (1) Walking barefoot on the hot blacktop of Lacy Lane to Montgomery Store to charge a two cent banana on my parents account.(2) The plays and amateur contest held in the school auditorium.
(3) The ice cream suppers on the lawn of the Methodist Church.
(4) Construction of the new school after it burned, complete with inside restrooms.
(5) Singing "Makes the Methodist love the Baptist" at revivals to the tune of "Old Time Religion".
(6) Buying a pint of ice cream for ten cents at the store near the school and eating all of it.
(7) Listening to Adolph Hitler's speeches on the radio at school.
(8) Hearing Principal Grady Moore's lectures about "diabolical devils", as he called in unruly students, and being instilled with his total patriotism and love of God and Country.
(9) The day World War II was declared.
(10) The day the Lacy Lakeview boys left for war.
(11) Enjoying a camaraderie among neighbors unequaled in my lifetime.