Sam Loving, the Flats neighborhood honored as Round Rock Local Legends

The Historic Preservation Commission announced this year’s Local Legends at the City Council meeting on Thursday, October 24.

Marshal Samuel E. Loving and the Flats Neighborhood were recognized for their contributions to Round Rock’s history.

The Local Legends program was established in 1990 to recognize those that have had a lasting impact on the culture, development and history of Round Rock.

Round Rock Local Legend selections must have a direct connection to the founding of the City of Round Rock or help tell the complete story of the City of Round Rock, with an emphasis on historic preservation and education of the public.

Local Legends are recognized for:

· Importance to the City’ s founding or growth;

· Association with an historic place or event;

· Impact of service to the community’ s history, development or culture;

· Achievements that have brought honor and distinction to the City of Round Rock.

This historic preservation program is intended to share informative stories with the public about Round Rock’ s culture so that the public understands how the past shaped what Round Rock is today.

Historic Preservation Commission Chair Pamela Sue Anderson presented the certificates and highlighted some of the accomplishments of each of the recipients:

Marshal Samuel E. Loving (1868-1953)

Samuel Edward Loving was Round Rock’s first City Marshal after it reincorporated in 1912. He was born in 1868 in Llano County to John and Elizabeth Jane Loving. Sam and his mother later moved to Williamson County’s Round Rock precinct, where Elizabeth eventually remarried.

Becoming City Marshal may have been a natural progression for Samuel. At age 10, he witnessed the 1878 gun battle between lawmen and the Sam Bass gang. In 1893, when he was 25, he was a passenger on a train that was held up by a gang of robbers, losing 60 cents that day. In 1898, he was one of three Round Rock men who served during the Spanish-American War. Samuel was a farrier for Company E, 1st Texas Cavalry Volunteers, and was shipped from Camp Mabry in Austin to Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, but the war ended before they could be deployed to Cuba.

After his six-month adventure as a soldier, Loving returned to his mother and stepfather’s home. In December 1901, he married Ruth Meritt, a 19-year-old widow in Llano County, who died of a brief illness less than a month later. In 1906, he married Hattie Broadway in Round Rock and took in her 8-year-old son, Vander. Vander would later become the circus aerialist

and female impersonator better known by the stage name Barbette. Sam and Hattie had Eugene, the first of their five children, in 1910. The chance to become marshal in 1913 may have been quite exciting for Loving, who at the time worked as a laborer in the Round Rock Broom Factory.

Loving’s years as Marshal appear to have been largely quiet. He worked on a string of burglaries in 1913, when W.M. Gault’s saloon was robbed the business and customers of more than $100 and the saloon-keeper’s gun. In February 1914, local merchant W.H. Lawson was shot and killed on the Brushy Creek bridge in Old Round Rock as he walked home with the day’s receipts in his pocket. Initially the marshal also served as streets commissioner, and Loving saw to the placement of Round Rock’s first two streetlights and first speed limit signs (12 mph).

After his term as Marshall ended, Loving was shown in the 1920 Census as being employed as an oil well foreman in Stephens County. By 1930 he was back in Round Rock living on Anderson Avenue and delivering newspapers. He was also an assistant scoutmaster for Round Rock’s boy scout troop and at some point served as chief of the Volunteer Fire Department. He ran again for Marshall but was defeated twice, losing to Luther Ramsey in 1931 and Tom McNeese in 1937

In 1940, Loving was a newspaper salesman with his youngest son Sam living at home. His stepson Vander had also returned home after spending much of the 1930s in France. Loving passed in 1953 at the age of 85 from heart disease. His death certificate lists his usual occupation at “Marshal,” and he is buried in Round Rock Cemetery.

The Flats Neighborhood

The Flats Neighborhood is a low-lying residential area east of Mays Street and south of Brushy Creek. The Flats has historically been a hub of activity and tight-knit multi-ethnic community whose resilience and ingenuity has contributed to Round Rock’s development for many generations.

The Flats was the first subdivision addition to New Round Rock. Washington Anderson sold 150 acres to the railroad, which laid out streets and blocks around its new train depot between Bagdad and Anderson Avenues. Anderson soon extended the railroad company’s street grid from Anderson Avenue north to Brushy Creek and began selling lots.

Until the 1930s, one block in the Flats at Sheppard and Austin Ave. was entirely occupied by a cotton yard, where cotton that had been processed and baled at the gins downtown was weighed, graded and stored before loading onto trains at the freight platform.

Many of the homes in the flats built in the early 1900s were built by Otto Sauls, who also lived in the neighborhood. When St. Paul’s AME church, the second oldest Black church in Round Rock, had to move out of the path of Interstate 35, it found a new home in the Flats on Sheppard Street. Another longtime resident was Joe Lee Johnson, the last principal of Hope Well Colored School and the first black teacher to integrate into RRISD. In addition to being an educator, Glee Coach, and mentor he and his wife Melownie owned several businesses in the Flats, including Cozy Corner (now the site of the new library) and The Café.

The neighborhood was close-knit because many residents did not have cars and did their work, shopping, and socializing within walking distance. Until the 1980s most residents worked and shopped “uptown” on Main Street, at Johnson’s Grocery, the Economy Drug Store and Rubio’s Grocery. The Flats has also been a setting for cultural activities, such as Fiesta Amistad’s Memorial Day events honoring Round Rock residents for their military service, that used to be held at Veterans Park.

This area was also vulnerable to flooding until 10 dams were built west of Round Rock between 1956 and 1966. Even with these protections, several homes on Pecan Street were flooded during tropical storm Helene in 2010. As the neighborhood had done many decades earlier, residents helped their neighbors who lived closer to Brushy Creek, providing food, clearing debris, and giving financial and moral support. The city later purchased some of the creek frontage in the floodplain, which will become part of The Downtown Park.

As the city continues to evolve and adapt to the growth it faces, the Flats remains a vital and vibrant part of downtown Round Rock. We honor the contributions of the multiple generations of families in the Flats who have helped make our community what it is today.

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Source: City of Round Rock