HORN HILL, TEXAS. Horn Hill is seven miles northwest of Groesbeck in west central Limestone County. It was once known as Mount Vernon, but the name Horn Hill became better established. Two possible sources for the name Horn Hill have been suggested. The first is that the name derives from the shape of a prominent elevation in the area. The second possibility is that the name was suggested by the early practice of marking turns in the road with steer horns. A store opened in the community in the 1850s, and a post office was established in 1857. The office closed in 1858 but opened again in 1860 and continued to function until the end of the Civil War. The post office was called Horn when it reopened in 1882, but the name was changed back to Horn Hill the next year. Horn Hill had only twenty-five residents in 1884, but its population rose to fifty by 1890 and to 250 by 1896. Its post office remained in operation until 1906, after which mail for Horn Hill was sent to Groesbeck. A few houses and a cemetery marked the community on county highway maps in the 1940s. At that time its population was estimated at twenty-five. Only a cemetery marked the site on maps in the 1980s.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: John J. Germann and Myron Janzen, Texas Post Offices by County (1986). Ray A. Walter, A History of Limestone County (Austin: Von Boeckmann-Jones, 1959).
