Killeen, TX news and local guide

Killeen became an important shipping point for cotton, wool and grain from western Bell and eastern Coryell counties and had about 780 people by 1900. Around 1905 local leaders persuaded the legislature to bridge Cowhouse Creek and other streams, doubling the town's trade area, and a public water system opened in 1914, when the population was 1,300. Killeen stayed a small, isolated farm town until World War II. In 1942 the Army created Camp Hood, recommissioned as Fort Hood in 1950, as a training post. Thousands of laborers, contractors, soldiers and their families poured in, and Killeen became a military boomtown. The post covered almost half of Killeen's farm trade area, and the loss of more than 300 farms and ranches ended the town's cotton gins and other farm businesses, which were replaced by businesses serving the soldiers. Sources Wikipedia: Killeen, Texas