Hubbard, TX

Hubbard is a Hill County city built around the meeting of Highway 31 and Highway 171, with five municipal lakes and a line of Victorian-era homes. The city took its name from Texas Governor Richard B. Hubbard, and early growth followed ranching, farming, and the railroads that came through in the 1880s. Its most unexpected chapter began in 1894, when a well drilled 3,100 feet down struck hot mineral water. A bath house opened in 1907, a hospital followed in 1915, and Hubbard spent a few decades drawing people in for mineral treatments before the bath house closed around 1930 and burned in 1934.

These days, Hubbard’s local landmarks are more everyday: the city pool serves Hubbard and surrounding communities, the civic center handles gatherings, and the highway crossroads keeps the city tied to Waco, Hillsboro, Mexia, and Corsicana. The old hot-well story still has a marker on North Magnolia, where the bath house once stood. Add the lakes, ranch-country beginnings, and the city’s Victorian houses, and the local scoop is a Central Texas crossroads with a health-resort past hiding under its regular city errands.