Weekender: Wild About the Springs

Lampasas honors its many springs with the Spring Ho Festival

By Marty Lange

Water, water everywhere. The Central Texas com-munity of Lampasas boasts Hancock, Hanna, and Cooper springs and hundreds of other smaller springs, not to mention Sulphur Creek, which runs through town. Citizens celebrate the bounty with a week-long festival each July (July 5-11, 2010) that includes fireworks, a beauty pageant, a talent contest, a kids’ fishing derby, special exhibits at the Keystone Square Mu-seum, a carnival, a dance contest, an arts- and-crafts fair, a pet parade, a barbecue cookoff, Dance on the Square, 10K & one-mile runs, a Grand Parade, washer- and horseshoe-pitching contests, and live music by local performers in W.M. Brook Park. And oh, yes, the Lampasas County Fair runs concurrently during the week. If you run out of things to do, visit the historic Hostess House, a former bathhouse, where you can sample homemade pies and cakes at the Green Frog Tea Room, and then cool off in the nearby spring-fed Hancock Swimming Pool. Call 512/556-5301; www.springho.com.