Hillsboro, Texas

Everything Hillsboro is known for

6 songs mention this city 2 artists from here

Music in Hillsboro

Songs About Hillsboro

the interstate 35 waltz
garret t. capps & justin boyd
10%
Peggy Sue
Buddy Holly
9%
"Pretty, pretty, pretty, pretty Peggy Sue"
That'll Be the Day
Buddy Holly
9%
"That'll be the day when you say goodbye"
The Closest Thing
Kylie Frey
8%
"forty miles down 35 it dawned on me"
If Tommy Duncan’s Voice Was Booze
Brennen Leigh
6%
"But if Tommy Duncan's voice was booze I'd stay drunk all the time"
I’ve Been Everywhere...In Texas
Brian Burns
5%
"Hillsboro"

Artists From Hillsboro

T
Tommy Duncan
country Pop: 16
G
Ghosts Of Hill County
americana Pop: 8

Rivers & Roads in Song near Hillsboro

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Hillsboro.

Interstate 35 42 songs Brazos River 37 songs Chisholm Trail 7 songs Interstate 45 7 songs

Musical Heritage

The Fire That Saved Texas Courthouses RoadyGoat

1993

The fire that nearly destroyed Hillsboro's courthouse ended up saving historic courthouses across Texas. On New Year's Day in 1993, an electrical short set the 1890 Hill County Courthouse ablaze. The roof and the seventy-foot clock tower collapsed, and the courthouse bell, cast in Baltimore and weighing more than fifteen hundred pounds, crashed down into the district courtroom. When the smoke cleared, only the limestone exterior walls were still standing. Instead of replacing it with a modern box, Hill County chose to rebuild the courthouse exactly as architect W. C. Dodson had drawn it, finishing the restoration in 1999. Hillsboro native Bob Bullock, then the lieutenant governor, championed the effort, and the most famous musician from a tiny town just down the road in Hill County played benefit concerts to help pay for it. The disaster helped inspire what became the Texas Historic Courthouse Preservation Program, which has since rescued courthouses all over the state. (Sources: Texas Highways; Texas Historical Commission; Architexas.)

The Hillsboro Drummer Who Helped Invent Rock RoadyGoat

1939

Hillsboro's best music story might be a drummer. Jerry Allison was born here in 1939, and he became the drummer for Buddy Holly and the Crickets, one of the bands that essentially invented rock and roll. Allison co-wrote two of the songs that started it all, Peggy Sue and That'll Be the Day. He always told the story that the second title came straight off the movie screen: he and Holly had just watched John Wayne repeat the line over and over in the 1956 western The Searchers, and as Allison remembered it, within about thirty minutes they had written the song. It is a remarkable thing to stand on the Hillsboro square and realize this small Central Texas town has a direct line to the birth of modern rock. (Sources: Wikipedia, with cited sources; Vintage Rock, 2022 interview.)

Hillsboro's Hand in a Famous Prison Album RoadyGoat

1932

Coming out of Huntsville's prison-music history, there is a perfect Hillsboro footnote. Record producer Bob Johnston was born here in 1932. He went on to produce some of the most important records of his era, working with Bob Dylan, Leonard Cohen, and Simon and Garfunkel. And he produced the man in black's landmark live album recorded inside Folsom Prison, which means this Hill County town has an indirect hand in one of the most famous prison recordings ever made. Johnston summed up his whole production philosophy in one rough, honest line that fit a room full of inmates as well as any studio: don't ever quit, don't stop playing, and if you do, don't come back. (Sources: Wikipedia, with cited sources; UNCUT; Briscoe Center.)

Hill County Courthouse RoadyGoat

1890

New Year's Day, 1993. An electrical short caught somewhere inside the Hill County Courthouse in Hillsboro, and before the day was out, the seventy-foot bell tower came down in flames. When the smoke cleared, this 1890 landmark was four limestone walls and not much else. Most towns would have bulldozed it and moved on. Hillsboro rebuilt — six years, nine million dollars, pulled together from grants, state money, and donations, including the take from a benefit concert Willie Nelson played to help save it. They rededicated it in 1999. And the fire lit a fuse statewide: then-Governor George W. Bush turned around and asked the Texas Historical Commission to check every old courthouse in Texas — and found a whole lot of them quietly falling apart. One building burned. It ended up saving dozens.

RoadyGoat →

Bobbie Nelson RoadyGoat

Before Willie Nelson was Willie Nelson, there was his big sister Bobbie at the piano. She came out of Abbott, Texas, same as him, and for decades she was the piano in his band — Sister Bobbie, he called her. Willie always said she was the real prodigy, not him. But the road wasn't kind to her early on: she once lost custody of her sons, in part because a woman playing music wasn't seen as a respectable way to make a living. She outlasted every bit of it. She was in Nashville for the birth of outlaw country, she wrote a memoir alongside her brother, and when she passed in 2022, she left one more record behind — "Loving You," made with Amanda Shires, released after she was gone. The backbone of the whole band, and she never once had to raise her voice.

RoadyGoat → · 8.7 mi away

Mynar's Bar RoadyGoat

1923

Downtown West, Texas, a Czech town straddling Interstate 35 — and on one side of the street sits Mynar's. The Mynar family bought the building back in 1923, but don't let that fool you: it ran as a grocery store through Prohibition, and only became a beer joint years down the road. Rick Mynar runs it now in the spirit of his late father, Felix, who was a religious man and opened just six days a week. "If you can't make it in six," he'd say, "why try seven?" Look close at the bar and you'll see a single brown streak worn into the linoleum, from Felix pacing and passing a mug hand to hand while he talked. His Stetson still hangs off the antler of a cousin's elk head. Beer and wine only. Bikers and cowboys, same rail.

RoadyGoat → · 14.6 mi away

Wolf's Sports Bar RoadyGoat

Across the street from Mynar's in downtown West stands Wolf's — and Wolf's leans sports bar over honky-tonk. The walls are painted up with Texas team logos, there's a University of Oklahoma logo hung in memory of an old regular, and a television over every surface, including the one above the urinal, running football, baseball, golf, rodeo, all of it. There's a table of older men here who call themselves the Table of Knowledge. Beer and wine, no liquor. The owner, Stephanie Gray, cooks on Easter and Thanksgiving for anybody with nowhere else to be — a lot of older widowed men in that crowd. James Miller's been coming since 1986. And when the live music kicks up, the Wolf's crowd and the Mynar's crowd forget which side of the street they came from.

RoadyGoat → · 14.6 mi away

History of Hillsboro

Reverse-Engineering a Lost Courthouse RoadyGoat

1993

Rebuilding the courthouse was really a feat of forensic engineering. When the fire left only the limestone shell standing, engineers and preservation architects had to play detective. First they stabilized cracked, heat-shocked stone that could have come down at any moment. Then they had to judge which original stones and structural pieces were sound enough to reuse and which had to be recut to match. The hardest part was the seventy-foot clock tower, which had burned and collapsed completely. To rebuild it, they studied old photographs, surviving fragments, and the original drawings, essentially reverse-engineering a structure that no longer existed. They reproduced the ornamental sheet-metal work and the historic roof forms by hand, then threaded modern structural reinforcement, wiring, and fire-safety systems through the building without spoiling its 1890 face. It is a master class in studying what survives to recover what is gone. (Sources: Architexas; Texas Historical Commission.)

Bonnie and Clyde's Disputed Hillsboro Killing RoadyGoat

1932

On the night of April 30th, 1932, members of the Barrow gang robbed a Hillsboro storekeeper and jeweler named J. N. Bucher, and Bucher was shot and killed. For decades the killing was pinned on Clyde Barrow himself, but the accounts do not actually agree. Most say Clyde stayed out in the getaway car because Bucher's son could have recognized him, and that someone else went inside and fired. The man later charged was Raymond Hamilton, though several accounts insist he was not the gunman either and name a different gang member, Ted Rogers. That disagreement is the real story. Hillsboro became one of many Texas crime scenes that got swept into the Bonnie and Clyde legend, the kind of place where the folklore and the documented evidence have never quite lined up. (Sources: Wikipedia, with cited sources; Find a Grave; period press accounts.)

Branded Burger: Home of the Branded Bun RoadyGoat

If you stop for one bite in Hillsboro, make it Branded Burger Company, right downtown across from the courthouse square. Its signature is exactly what the name promises: the bun arrives seared with the restaurant's own cattle-style brand, so every burger comes out marked like a Texas steer. They lean into the ranch-town identity, and the rest of the plate backs it up, with fresh-cut fries and hand-dipped onion rings made in house. Set in a historic building on the square, with a bar upstairs looking out over that famous courthouse, it is the food stop most tied to Hillsboro's identity. (Sources: Branded Burger Company; Explore Hillsboro; Yelp.)

James L. Harris

1916

James Lindell Harris was born on June 27, 1916 to Albert Lee and bessie harris at the family farm near hillsboro. He entered the army on March 20, 1941 and trained at Fort Sam Houston with the armored division. Harris was assigned to the 756th tank battalion and led his unit through North Africa and Europe. In vagney, France, Harris and his men encountered German troops. Although mortally wounded he continued to lead his men until allied tanks arrived, and refused medical attention until a member of his crew had been carried to safety. In recognition of his bravery, Harris was posthumously awarded the Medal of Honor. Harris is buried at Ridge Park Cemetery in Hillsboro.

Historical Marker →

Harris, James L.

1944

James L. Harris, Medal of Honor recipient, was born to Albert Lee and Bessie Harris at Hillsboro, Texas, in 1916. He attended Bynum High School through the tenth grade and was drafted into military service at Fort Sam Houston, Texas, in late 1941. He was assigned to the 756th Tank Battalion and trained with it at Fort Knox, Kentucky, Fort Lewis, Washington, Fort Ord, California, and Camp Pickett, Virginia. After fighting through North Africa he earned a battlefield commission on March 26, 1944, as second lieutenant, at the battle of Cassino in southern Italy. On the night of October 7, 1944, near the village of Vagney, France, his tank command was attacked by a German tank and two platoons of infantry. While leading his tanks on foot, he was wounded. From the ground in front of his tank he ordered it to open fire on the Germans, whose progress was halted until more tanks arrived and forced them to withdraw. Subsequently, Harris's leg was shot off at the hip. He refused to be evacuated until other wounded members of his crew were removed. He died before he could be given medical attention. Harris was buried at Vagney, France, until 1951, when he was reinterred at Ridge Park Cemetery, Hillsboro.

Tsha Handbook →

Philpott, Margaret

1943

Margaret Philpott [pseud. Madge Bellamy], motion picture and stage actress, was born in Hillsboro, Texas, on June 30, 1903, to Annie Derden and William Bledsoe Philpott. After her stage debut at age five, her family moved to Denver, and then to San Antonio, where she was educated at St. Mary's Hall . She subsequently pursued an acting career, appeared in New York productions, and attracted national attention in the title role in the road show Pollyanna . She made her screen debut in The Riddle: Woman for Pathé in 1920. In a motion-picture career spanning twenty-six years, she performed in some sixty features and one serial. Though primarily a lead in light drama and comedies, she was no stranger to horror and western films. Among the titles most associated with her are King Vidor 's Love Never Dies (1921), Lorna Doone (1922), John Ford's western The Iron Horse (1924), and the horror classic White Zombie (1932). Although Madge Bellamy's successes were mostly in the silent era of the 1920s, she proved able to continue into the early sound period, as evidenced in Tonight at Twelve (1929) and White Zombie . After partially retiring in 1935, she appeared in several small roles. She was married in 1928 in Tijuana, Baja California, to bond broker Logan Metcalf, but filed for divorce four days later. In 1943 she was convicted of firearms violations after taking three failed shots at an alleged lover, lumberman Albert Stanwood Murphy. The following year, in a court case over a contested "mutual agreement" with Murphy, Bellamy received a multimillion-dollar out-of-court settlement. She spent her later years as a recluse in several residences in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, where she worked on an unfinished autobiography, I Was Madge Bellamy . She made her last public appearance in November 1989 at a screening of The Iron Horse at the Western Heritage Museum in Los Angeles. After several weeks' hospitalization for cardiac problems, Madge Bellamy died on January 24, 1990, in Upland, California.

Tsha Handbook →

McMullan, Francis

1865

Francis McMullan, the leader of a group of Texans who moved to Brazil rather than remain under a Reconstruction government, the son of Hugh Milton and Nancy (Dyer) McMullan, was born in Walker County, Georgia, in 1835. His father was an early landowner, lawyer, and stockman in Hill County, Texas. Frank attended McKenzie College in Clarksville from 1858 to 1860. He was described by a contemporary as "a man of cool courage...and undaunted resolution" who served as an officer under William Walker in the unsuccessful 1857–58 campaign to capture Nicaragua. After serving the Confederacy in Mexico during the Civil War , McMullan joined William Bowen in a plan to take advantage of liberal Brazilian immigration terms and take a colony of 154 from north central Texas to South America. McMullan and Bowen left for Brazil in late 1865 to locate lands and decided on fifty square leagues on the headwaters of the São Lourenço River south of São Paulo. McMullan returned to Texas in June 1866. After harassment by port authorities in New Orleans and Galveston, the colonists sailed on the brig Derby on January 25, 1867. A mutiny occurred when it became known that the ship's captain had been a party to the delays in sailing and illegal fines of colony leaders. A tropical storm resulted in shipwreck on the coast of Cuba on February 9, 1867. McMullan subsequently led his charges to New York, where they boarded the steamer North America on April 22, then sailed for Rio de Janeiro. McMullan guided the emigrants to colony lands before becoming terminally ill with tuberculosis. His colony is credited with introducing the moldboard plow and modern agriculture to Brazil. In addition, colony members established a Baptist church there and made major contributions to Brazil's educational system. Frank McMullan was active in politics in Hill County before the Civil War and served as a delegate to the Texas Democratic convention in Galveston in 1860. He never married. He was a Mason and Methodist. He died at Iguape, Brazil, on September 29, 1867.

Tsha Handbook →

Katy Depot

1881

This depot was built to serve the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) Rail Line, which reached Hillsboro in 1881. Completed in 1902, the station features elements of the Eastlake, Victorian, and Prairie styles. Early MKT trains carried materials for the growing town and brought early residents and such notables as presidents Woodrow Wilson, William Taft, Calvin Coolidge, and Harry Truman. The building was moved here from the original site in 1978. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1980

Historical Marker →

Peabody School

1885

In 1885, a bond was issued for the construction of an African American School, which was built soon afterwards. The school, named for George Peabody, a banker who distributed funds to the southern states following the Civil War, educated students in the African-American neighborhood in Hillsboro known as Freetown. A brick building replaced the original frame structure in 1919, and was used until the school moved to here in 1950. Peabody School's last graduating class was in 1966, with primary level classes held on the campus for several more years until full integration occurred. Although the building burned down in 2005, Peabody School remains a source of pride for Hillsboro residents. (2008)

Historical Marker →

Things to Do in Hillsboro

food 14.5 mi away
The Czech Stop

In 1983 Bill Polk opened a little convenience store off I-35 in West Texas and started selling kolaches he bought from a nearby bakery. The pastries moved so…
food 14.5 mi away
Slovacek's West

I-35 exit 353 in West, Texas — the rival Czech bakery to the Czech Stop across the highway. Over 35 kolache varieties, in-house smoked meats, and a full deli…
day trip
Day Trip to Hillsboro 🍔 (FULL EPISODE) S7 E12

Featured on The Daytripper — a full-episode local travel guide.

Everything Near Hillsboro

268 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Explore Hillsboro on the Map
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