Name: Killeen, Texas
Address: Killeen, TX

Killeen, TX RoadyGoat

Killeen is more than just a military town. Sure, Fort Cavazos, formerly Fort Hood, is the heart of the place, and you can feel that patriotic spirit everywhere you go. But there's a creative pulse here too.

Killeen, TX RoadyGoat

Killeen owes its existence to the railroad, plain and simple. In 1882, when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway was laying track through Central Texas, someone decided this spot was as good as any for a whistle stop. A town sprang up around it, named after a railroad executive, and that was that. Early Killeen was a typical frontier town, a place where farmers and ranchers could bring their cotton and cattle to market, load them onto trains, and head back home. The Lampasas River, not too far off, provided water, and the rolling prairie offered grazing land. It was a hardscrabble life, but there was a sense of possibility in the air. Of course, the biggest change came with Fort Cavazos, originally Camp Hood. That transformed Killeen from a quiet railroad town into a bustling military community. Suddenly, there was a constant influx of soldiers and their families, injecting new life – and new challenges – into the area. Even the presence of a German POW camp during World War II, a surprising footnote in the town's history, speaks to how Killeen became a place where the world seemed to converge. Killeen is a place where Friday night lights shine bright, where the Dallas Cowboys are practically a religion, and where the spirit of service runs deep.

Two Bells and a Punchline RoadyGoat

Ding Dong, Texas earned its name the best way a town can: with a joke that stuck. Back in the early nineteen thirties, two cousins, Zulis Bell and Isaac Bertram Bell, who everybody called Bert, bought a little country store on the Lampasas River at a crossing then known as McBryde. They needed a sign, so they hired a fellow named C.C. Hoover, and Hoover was no ordinary sign painter. He could draw and paint in oils. When he stopped in at the hardware store over in Florence to buy his paint, the man behind the counter, Fred Foster, gave him an idea. Why not draw two bells, Foster said, one with the name Zulis in it and one with the name Bert, and letter the words Ding Dong right there between them. Their last name was Bell, you see, so two bells going ding dong was just too good to pass up. Hoover painted it exactly that way, and folks driving by loved it. Little by little the whole community around the store started answering to the same three syllables. So the next time you roll through, remember: the name is a family signature and a bell joke rolled into one.

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Oveta Culp Hobby and the Women's Army Corps

1942

Oveta Culp Hobby served as the director of the Women’s Army Corps (WAC) during World War II. Her organizational skills and leadership helped make the WAC a respected part of the American military and opened new possibilities for women in U.S. postwar society. Born in Killeen on January 19, 1905, Oveta was the second of seven children of Isaac W. and Emma Elizabeth (Hoover) Culp. A good student, she developed an interest in law and state government from her father, a state representative. She gained skills as a legislative parliamentarian and as a reporter for the Austin Statesman before moving to Houston. There she renewed a family friendship with former governor William P. Hobby, president of the Houston Post-Dispatch. They married on February 23, 1931. In May 1942, with America at war, Oveta Culp Hobby was appointed director of the newly organized Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps (WAAC). Under Colonel Hobby’s leadership, the WAAC provided American women the opportunity to help in the war effort. The first WAAC officers graduated in August 1942. Less than a year later, the WAAC became part of the U.S. Army as the WAC. By the end of the war, more than 99,000 members of the WAC served with army commands in all theaters of the war. Colonel Hobby resigned in June 1945 and returned to Houston. She remained there and continued her service to the city, and from 1953 to 1955 served as the first U.S. Secretary of Health, Education and Welfare during Pres. Dwight Eisenhower’s administration. A decorated World War II officer and respected business and civic leader, Oveta Culp Hobby died in Houston on August 16, 1995.

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Luby's Massacre Site - Killeen

1991

On October 16, 1991, a gunman drove his truck through the window of a Luby's Cafeteria in Killeen and killed 23 people, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history at the time.

Second Armored Division, United States Army

1778

Gen. Patton's "Hell on Wheels," the 2nd Armored Division, United States Army Formed to meet 20th century challenges, this force includes Battery A, 1st Battalion, 3rd Field Artillery, which has been in service since 1778. That battery and other veteran units have found new capabilities in this age of mechanized combat involving lightning mobility and massive firepower. In 1940, as German panzers overran France, the United States Congress created the 1st and 2nd American Armored Divisions. The 2nd was organized July 15, 1940, at Fort Benning, Ga., by Gen. Charles L. Scott, and received its "Hell on Wheels" name in 1941 from Gen. George S. Patton, Jr. First U.S. armored force in combat in World War II, "Hell on Wheels" landed in North Africa on Nov. 8, 1942. It won great victories at Safi and Casablanca, in the assault on Sicily, the 1944 Normandy invasion, the Battle of the Bulge, and other campaigns. Along 11,702 miles of combat advance, the 2nd won 7 French Croix de Guerres, 19 Distinguished Unit citations, and was first foreign division ever given the Fourragere of Belgium. The 2nd provided Honor Guard for President Harry S. Truman at the Potsdam peace conference. Since 1945 Fort Hood has been 2nd's permanent base. (1975)

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Fort Hood

1942

Fort Hood (formerly known as Fort Cavazos) is located in southwestern Bell and southeastern Coryell counties in Central Texas. Most of the 218,000 acres owned by the United States Army is located in Coryell County. On January 14, 1942, at the beginning of United States involvement in World War II , it was announced that a tank destroyer tactical and firing center would be established near Killeen, Texas. Gen. Andrew D. Bruce was selected as the first commander. The first major unit, the 893d Tank Destroyer Battalion, arrived from Fort Meade, Maryland, on April 2, 1942. As other troops began arriving, some 300 farming and ranching families were required, on very short notice, to give up their land. Camp Hood was officially opened on September 18, 1942, and has been continuously used for armored training ever since. The installation was named in honor of Gen. John Bell Hood . The mission at Camp Hood was almost immediately expanded to include a replacement and basic training center at North Fort Hood. At times as many as 100,000 soldiers were being trained for the war effort. During the later part of the war some 4,000 German prisoners of war were interned at Camp Hood. The postwar years saw a significant reduction of activity, and the post's population dropped to about 1,700. By 1950 the temporary camp was designated the permanent status of Fort Hood. Basic facilities for a permanent army installation were constructed. The demands for training brought about by the Korean War accelerated military activities. The installation acquired an additional 49,578 acres in 1953 and former United States Air Force and Department of Defense landholdings in the 1950s and 1960s. Major army units stationed at one time or another at the installation included the First, Second, and Fourth Armored divisions. In 1954 Fort Hood was the nation's only two-division installation, and the Third Corps was transferred from Camp Roberts, California. In 1990 the installation was the home of the headquarters of the III Corps under United States Army Forces command and was located in the Fifth United States Army area. The two active army divisions, the Second Armored Division ("Hell on Wheels") and the First Cavalry Division, were stationed there. Other commands included the Sixth Cavalry Brigade (Air Combat), Corps Support Command, the Third Signal Brigade, and several tenant organizations including MEDDAC (Medical Department Activity), Test and Experimentation Command, and more than a dozen other smaller support or tenant commands including two major airfields. Reserve units such as the Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Armored divisions and the Thirty-sixth Airborne Brigade of the Texas National Guard and other smaller regular and reserve units of the army, air force, and marine corps used the facility. Fort Hood is one of the largest federally owned Texas landholdings and has taken an initiative in the stewardship of cultural resources on public lands. More than 2,000 archeological sites dating from the Ice Age to historic times have been recorded. The archeological record there contains a diversity of resources including more than 1,000 sites of hunting and gathering people from all major time periods in Texas prehistory and the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. More than fifty historic communities, most of them now extinct, are represented in the Fort Hood archeological inventory. In November 1973 the skeletal remains of forty-five Indians were reinterred at the facility. Archeological sites are protected by federal law from unauthorized damage, destruction, collecting, or excavation, and records provide resources for anthropological research and public appreciation. Fort Hood is one of the largest military installations in the world. Its primary mission is to maintain a state of readiness for combat missions, and the dominant activity is the training of III Corps. A significant portion of the combat-ready air and ground forces of the United States Army i

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Hobby, Oveta Culp

1905

Oveta Culp Hobby, first secretary of the Department of Health, Education and Welfare, first commanding officer of the Women's Army Corps, and chairman of the board of the Houston Post , second of seven children of Ike W. and Emma Elizabeth (Hoover) Culp, was born in Killeen, Texas, on January 19, 1905. Her father was a lawyer and state legislator. Oveta attended the public schools of Killeen and learned from her family the tradition of service to the community, to neighbors, to the state, and to the nation. Her mother, for instance, collected food, clothing, and money for the poor and sent her to deliver baskets of goods to neighbors who were going through hard times. She was only five or six when a temperance campaign swept Killeen, and at Sunday school all the small children were invited to sign the pledge and receive a Woman's Christian Temperance Union white ribbon to wear. Oveta thought it over and refused. She had no particular desire to drink liquor, she granted, but she might wish to when she grew up and thought it best not to give her word unless she was sure she was prepared to keep it. From her father she acquired an early love for the law, horses, and the intricate workings of government. She stopped in his office every afternoon on her way home from school to listen to the talk and to read books far beyond her years or vocabulary. By age ten she had read the Congressional Record . At thirteen she had read the Bible three times. In the sixth grade she won a Bible as the best speller in her class. When Culp was elected to the state legislature in 1919, he took the fourteen-year-old Oveta with him to Austin, and she became a serious and interested observer of each day's sessions. Even though she missed many school days during her father's term in Austin, she graduated from Temple High School high in her class. In this period she took up elocution and recited "Alaska, the Brave Cowgirl" so dramatically that a visiting Chautauqua manager offered her a touring contract. Disappointed when her parents refused to consider the glittering offer, she turned her surplus energies to organizing the "Jolly Entertainers," a group of half a dozen teenage musicians. They toured neighboring towns and gave benefit performances to raise money to buy church organs. In the next two years, Oveta Culp studied at Mary Hardin Baylor College in Belton, taught elocution, put on school plays, and became a cub reporter on the Austin Statesman . At nineteen, she had her own library of 750 volumes studded with such items as Cases of Common Law Reading , Revised Civil Statutes , Jefferson and Hamilton , The Private Papers of Colonel House , and the poetry of Edna St. Vincent Millay. In 1925, at the age of twenty, she was asked by the speaker of the Texas House of Representatives to act as legislative parliamentarian. She served in that capacity until 1931, while continuing her education with tutors and classes at the University of Texas. She became a clerk of the State Banking Commission and codified the banking laws of the state of Texas. Later she became a clerk in the legislature's judiciary committee. The National Democratic Convention was held in Houston in 1928, and Oveta Culp was released from her work as secretary of the Democratic Club to help with convention plans. When the campaign for Al Smith had gone its losing way, she was called to work in Tom (Thomas T.) Connally 's campaign for United States senator against Earle B. Mayfield , the Ku Klux Klan candidate. She next worked on a Houston mayoral campaign, after which the new mayor offered her a post as assistant to the city attorney. She accepted, with the understanding that she would be released to return to Austin as parliamentarian when the next legislative session opened. At twenty-five she was persuaded to run for the state legislature from Houston, but was beaten by a candidate who whispered darkly that she was "a parliamentarian and a Unitarian." That ended her quest for elected

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Killeen, Texas

Music in Killeen

Songs About Killeen

Artists From Killeen

Rivers & Roads in Song near Killeen

History of Killeen

Killeen, TX RoadyGoat

Killeen, TX RoadyGoat

Two Bells and a Punchline RoadyGoat

Oveta Culp Hobby and the Women's Army Corps

Luby's Massacre Site - Killeen

Second Armored Division, United States Army

Fort Hood

Hobby, Oveta Culp

Things to Do in Killeen

Everything Near Killeen