Woman Hollering Creek & Other Texas Names

I don't know about other states, but here in Texas we have great names for our creeks, and some pretty descriptive ones for towns too.

Today, as I drove over the bridge at Mustang Creek, I thought about this.

You know how the brain works. You're thinking about one thing—like the fact that busy Interstate 45 crosses Mustang Creek, probably named more than a century ago because of the mustangs roaming free in that.

Tangential Thinking

Then your brain jumps to other creek names like Woman Hollering Creek on the road to San Antonio.

Maps dating from the 1830s name this creek as Arroyo de la Llorona, Weeping Woman Creek. Stories abound as to how this creek came by its name.

Some say Weeping Woman refers to a woman who drowned her children in the creek. Others say a pioneer woman went to wash clothes in the creek and was captured by the indigenous Comanches. She screamed and wept and hollered for help, but no one could reach her before she was taken away.

Still another origin said that pioneers camping nearby heard panthers screaming in the night, a blood-curdling sound like a woman's scream. Take your pick there are probably a half a dozen stories about the origin of the name with no recorded history to back up any of the stories. In the end, Woman Hollering stuck fast as the name for the creek.

Memorable Texas Names

We have creeks named after animals, people, geographic locations, colors, and Native American Tribes.

In the Houston area, we have Little Cypress Creek that has succeeded in flooding thousands of vehicles and homes since 2017. Little? Hmmm.

There's Big Cow Creek, Little Cow Creek, Calf Creek, as well as Cat, Bear, Buffalo, Fox, Alligator Creek, and several varieties of fowl and bird creek names.

Your imagination can supply the reasons for these names: Buried City Creek, Cowhouse Creek, Horsepen Creek, North Big Blue Creek, Scalp Creek,  and Battle Creek, named after a 24-hour battle between white surveyors and Kickapoos, Wacos, Tehuacanas, and Caddoes. Calamity Creek was named for the flash flood that washed away an adobe house built near the creek.

Let's Go to Town

Bigfoot was named for Texas Revolution fighter William A. "Bigfoot" Wallace, not the mythical creature.

Bug Tussle. Yes, it really is a place in Texas. It was an unincorporated community named after an insect swarm ruined an ice cream social in the 1890s.

Many have heard of Cut and Shoot, named, according to the Texas State Historical Association, after a heated community argument and a young boy claiming, "I'm going to cut around the corner and shoot through the bushes!"

In a community that had no post office until 1877, residents would place their outgoing mail and a dime in a small box for delivery to Giddings, a nearby city. The community came to be known as Dime Box.

Ding Dong? Yep. That was a real place. In 1930s, Bert and Zulis Bell, two brothers, ran a country store between Killeen and Florence. They had an advertisement that started as a joke—a picture featuring two bells labeled Ding and Dong. The name stuck and became the town's name.

DISH, Texas. What people won't do to better a town's economy. In 2005, the residents of Clark, in Denton County, Texas, concocted a scheme to get free satellite service for the town.

They agreed to rename their town DISH, if the DISH Network would provide them with free satellite. The company accepted the deal and provided free service and equipment for 10 years.

Named for Blue Bell wildflowers growing nearby.

There are others like Gun Barrel City, Quanah (named after a famous Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, born of a white captive), and Buck Naked, but those are stories for another day.

Takeaway Truth

Have you visited Texas yet? You should, and take pictures of all of the name oddities to entertain your family and friends back home.