Hearne

H earne earned the title the Crossroads of Texas by virtue of two rail lines and two highways crisscrossing within its boundaries. A small town with an inordinate amount of heavy traffic, Hearne has always been a place where a lot of moving and shaking occurs. Indeed, moving and shaking characterized Hearne from its beginnings when namesake Christopher Columbus Hearne convinced the Houston & Texas Central Railroad to make a tiny, unincorporated village its terminus. Some years after, a visitor referred to Hearne as 19 saloons surrounding an artesian well. Ninety-year resident Bill Palmos described Hearne as a rough town of good-hearted people with a matching reputation. He added that when people traveled by rail, Houston, Hempstead, and Hell was the conductor s call. Even after saloons gave way to churches, schools, and service clubs, Hearne s reputation for roughness stuck."