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February 21, 2001
Dear Texpert, Can't find any info on town of Regency
and the historic 'Swinging Bridge.' We live here
and operate a Bar-B-Que Cafe. We have had people visit us
from Sweden, and all over the U.S., but many Texans don't
know of the historic bridge. We are supposed to be the
last suspension brige still usable in our great state.
Is this true? I have pictures if you're interested. Thank
you, Linda K
Dear Linda, I've been there, and I think you're correct.
Texas Escapes should send a reporter to interview you! Here's
what the Handbook of Texas says about the village:
REGENCY, TEXAS. Regency, also known as Hanna Valley and
as Hannaville, is on the Colorado River twenty miles southwest
of Goldthwaite in southwestern Mills County. Hanna Valley,
one of three rich farming communities dividing the Colorado
River valley in Mills County, was named for the Hanna family.
David Hanna and two slaves settled in the area in 1854,
and the next year David's father, Jesse P. Hanna, and Jesse's
four other sons arrived in the valley, driving horses and
cattle. According to local tradition, the Hanna women influenced
their men to remain in the area because of its songbirds.
By 1856 the Hannas had built the first house there. In 1862
a band of Comanche Indians attacked the residents of Hanna
Valley, but by the early 1870s the threat of Indian raids
had subsided. Around 1870, however, vigilante committees
formed in the area to fight cattle rustling and other crimes,
since there were no nearby courts of law. These groups eventually
became criminal mobs that controlled and terrorized San
Saba County and surrounding areas until the intervention
of the Texas Rangers in 1896 and Capt. William J. McDonaldqv
in May 1897. The first store in Hanna Valley was built in
1871, and the first post office opened in 1876, with Jim
Hanna, one of Jesse's sons, as postmaster. The post office
closed in 1882, but was reestablished in 1884, when the
town population had grown to fifty. At that time the name
Hanna Valley was rejected by the postal authorities because
another Texas town had the same name; the community became
known as Regency instead. By 1890 Regency had a gristmill,
a cotton gin, and a population of fifty, and by 1895 it
had more than 200 residents and a church, a general store,
a flour mill and gin, a physician, and a constable. From
1920 to 1940 the town had about forty residents. By 1936
Regency consisted of fewer than a dozen scattered dwellings.
Its post office had been discontinued by the early 1930s,
and mail was routed through Mullin. The town's remaining
store closed in 1971. In 1990 Regency reported twenty-five
residents. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Hartal Langford Blackwell, Mills
County-The Way it Was (Goldthwaite, Texas: Eagle Press,
1976). Flora Gatlin Bowles, A No Man's Land Becomes a County
(Austin: Steck, 1958). Richard Allen Burns Recommended citation:
"REGENCY, TX." The Handbook of Texas Online - Texpert
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