COUNCIL CREEK, TEXAS. Council Creek was an early settlement on Council Creek and what is now Farm Road 2341, ten miles northwest of Burnet in western Burnet County. Local tradition has it that the creek and the community were named for a meeting of local residents trying to settle a difficulty. The meeting was called a "council of war," but the dispute was settled peacefully. The Council Creek area was settled about 1856 by several families from Illinois. By the early 1860s the community had a grist and saw mill, a turning lathe, and a leather shop; cedar shingles, hardwood lumber, and furniture were among the earliest commodities produced by area residents. The first schoolhouse in the vicinity, often referred to as Cedar College for the material from which it was made, also doubled as a church building. In 1896 the Council Creek school had one teacher and forty students. The school burned before 1912, and a new building had to be built. After being moved to several different locations, the school was finally consolidated with the Burnet Independent School District in 1951. The school and a few houses marked the community on county highway maps in the 1940s, but by the 1980s the only evidence of the old settlement was Fry Cemetery. A subdivision called Council Creek Village was established to the west of the old Council Creek community site in the early 1960s. Most residents of Council Creek Village were newcomers to the area, attracted by the resort facilities offered by Lake Buchanan.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Darrell Debo, Burnet County History (2 vols., Burnet, Texas: Eakin, 1979).

Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl