Killeen (Images of America: Texas)

By Annette S. Lucksinger and Gerald D. Skidmore Sr.

Book Overview

The story of Killeen is aptly called "a tale of two cities." Killeen was founded on May 15, 1882, when the first Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway Company (GC&SF) locomotive arrived from east Bell County. The original town contained 360 acres purchased from Susan Spofford for $960. GC&SF honored its assistant general manager, Frank Patrick Killeen, by naming the new town for him, although he probably never visited his namesake. During its first 60 years, Killeen developed into a busy agricultural center specializing in cotton and wool. It remained a town of approximately 1,200 until 1942, when a tank destroyer center was opened nearby and became Killeen's close neighbor--physically, economically, and socially--displacing farms and ranches and converting the town from an agricultural to a military-based economy. That conversion and Killeen's boomtown future were sealed in 1950, when Camp Hood, the tank destroyer center named for Confederate general John Bell Hood, became a permanent military installation and was renamed Fort Hood.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0738596043
• ISBN13: 9780738596044
• Release Date: March 2013
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing (SC)
• Length: 128 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 6.5" x 9.1"