How we ended up with a chain of cities

It's bad form to blog about two subjects in the same post, so I'll foreshadow.  I spent a couple of hours at the Killeen Public Library main branch this afternoon researching today's blog topic.  The experience opened my eyes to some problems that will face our children and grandchildren.  I'll write about those problems tomorrow.

The information below is taken largely from Gra'Delle Duncan's "Tale of Two Cities, 1882-1982", of which Killeen households should have a copy:

As I suggested yesterday, it was almost accidental that we ended up with a chain of three "cities" along Nolan Creek west of Belton -- Nolanville, Harker Heights and Killeen.  Nolanville is the oldest by quite a bit.  There has been a "Warren" or "Nolan Valley" or "Nolandville" or "Nolanville" in the general area of the current town (although not continuously) since the 1850s.  Harker Heights is by far the junior.  It was just the figment of a farmer's imagination until 1957 and didn't get a name until 1960.  Killeen has some bona fides, having developed as a market town and railroad watering stop in the 1880s.

Killeen was the first of the three to get a city charter.  There was a mayor of Killeen (W. E. Hudson) by 1893.  The areas now occupied by Copperas Cove (in Coryell County), Fort Hood (spanning Bell and Coryell), Harker Heights, Nolanville and (unincorporated) Youngsport were part of Killeen's barely-surviving trading area.  In wet years, there was cotton. When it was dry in the 1930s, the whole area came close to blowing away.

By 1942 it was easy for the U.S. Army to buy 108,000 acres, and a year later, an additional 51,000 acres, around Killeen to train anti-tank crews.  The post, then "Camp Hood", changed Killeen fundamentally.

By the mid 1950s, the areas close to Fort Hood were getting crowded (and already a little worn down).  A hog farmer east of town, P.R. Cox, went into business with Harley Kern to develop pasture land for additional housing outside the Killeen city limit.  The city of Killeen didn't want to take on the burden of a larger and more spread-out population, leaving Cox with a dilemma that he explained:

We really felt Killeen would expand and we would become part of that town. But long before this could happen, the area needed services such as garbage collection, police protection, pet control and other services which required incorporation.

So September 24, 1960, as the result of an incorporation election, the city of Harker Heights was created, with Cox as the first mayor.  Since then, with some periods of setback mainly connected with reductions in troop strength at Fort Hood, Harker Heights has prospered.  Some of the gaudiest and some of the most attractive homes in the Nolan Valley are in Harker Heights.

Nolanville, still unorganized 110 years after the first anglo settlers moved in, finally incorporated on March 27, 1961. I've been unable to find out what motivated the incorporation election (which passed by votes of 64-8), but I suspect is was to keep the area from being sucked up by the newly incorporated Harker Heights.

So now we have three city governments for no very good reason.  There is a political question: Do we want to do anything about it?