Willis, Texas: The Town the Merchants Donated

In eighteen seventy, two Galveston merchants named Peter J. and Richard S. Willis, large landowners in Montgomery County, donated a townsite to the Houston and Great Northern Railroad along its proposed route through the county.

Railroads often rewarded such donations by naming the station after the donor, which is exactly what happened: Willis, Texas. By eighteen seventy-two the tracks were through, and businesses from several older communities, including Danville and Old Waverly, picked up and moved to the new rail town. A post office opened that year, and a Black Methodist congregation that had already organized in the area became the first church in Willis.

The town briefly competed with Montgomery to become the county seat in eighteen seventy-four but lost. It went on to host a college and vast tobacco fields supporting as many as seven cigar factories.