Chasing Our Tales - Soda Springs, Parker County

Chasing Our Tales, Soda Springs

"I like to learn more about Soda Springs," says Danny Atchley of Mineral Wells.

Well, Danny, the Handbook of Texas says the following: SODA SPRINGS, TEXAS. Soda Springs, once known as Sour Springs, is a small rural community on Farm Road 1322 five miles northeast of Luling in southern Caldwell County. The community post office, which operated from 1857 to 1880, took the name Sour Springs because the local springs had an odd taste caused by a high sodium carbonate content in the water. The name of the community was later changed to Soda Springs. During the 1940s a church and a few houses marked the townsite on county highway maps. The flow of the local springs was 6.3 liters per second in 1946 but had diminished to only .13 liters per second by 1975. The Soda Springs community was labeled on county highway maps in the late 1980s, but no population estimates were available."

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gunnar Brune, Springs of Texas, Vol. 1 (Fort Worth: Branch-Smith, 1981).

Now, Caldwell County is on the South Coast of Texas, not near the great county of Palo Pinto, but, in fact, Soda Springs is right on the county line of Palo Pinto and Parker on the Littlefield Bend of the Brazos River. This is due north of the I-20 just where the county lines are.

There is a book entitled Soda Springs Cemetery, Littlefield Bend of the Brazos River, Parker County, Texas which was compiled by James Broom, in 1995. The Dallas Public Library has this book, and you could get it in inter-library loan through the Bois Ditton Library in Mineral Wells.

I think the folks in Soda Springs have a Millsap address, and I did find this: Soda Springs Baptist Church, 817-682-7229, 1801 Soda Springs Road, Millsap TX 76066. It is at lattitude: 324051N; longtitude: 0980310W.

The cemetery at Soda Springs is listed in the Vol I. Cemetery Book, page 190, map #7, in Cemeteries of Southern Parker County, recently published by the Parker County Genealogical Society. You may contact them at the Parker County Heritage Society, P.O. Box 97, Weatherford, TX 76086.

I have further discovered that James Hatfield is looking for information on the HATFIELD familly that setteled first at COX PRARIE > SODA SPRINGS > RED BLUFF COMMUNITY. This family camer to Parker co by wagon train with the GREEN, CAMBELL, & MARTIN families. You can email Mr. Hatfield at <[email protected]>.

Soda Springs Cemetery