Hill County Texas map
31.98° N · 97.13° W · County seat: Hillsboro · 986 sq mi
Every driver between Dallas and Austin passes through Hill County, because Hillsboro is where Interstate 35 divides into I-35E and I-35W. The county also holds Lake Whitney on the Brazos and a courthouse that burned to a shell on New Year's Day 1993 and was rebuilt from the original drawings.
Centered on Hill County. The pin marks Hillsboro at the I-35 junction; Lake Whitney fills the county's western edge along the Brazos.
Where Hill County is
Hill County lies on the seam between the southern Metroplex and Central Texas, about 30 miles north of Waco and 55 miles south of Fort Worth. Its neighbors, clockwise from north, are Johnson, Ellis, Navarro, Limestone, McLennan and Bosque. The Brazos River forms most of the Bosque County line on the west.
The legislature cut the county out of Navarro County in 1853 and named it for George Washington Hill, who served the Republic of Texas as secretary of war and secretary of the navy. Most of the 986 square miles is Blackland Prairie cotton and grain country; only 27 square miles are water.
Dallas is 58 miles northeast and Arlington 52 miles north. Central Time; 6th congressional district.
Towns and populations
| Place | Type | 2020 population |
|---|---|---|
| Hillsboro (county seat) | City | 8,174 |
| Whitney | Town | 1,992 |
| Itasca | City | 1,565 |
| Hubbard | City | 1,390 |
| Blum | Town | 382 |
| Abbott | City | 352 |
| Mount Calm | City | 282 |
| Covington | City | 262 |
| Malone | Town | 236 |
| Carl's Corner | Town | 203 |
| Penelope | Town | 180 |
| Bynum | Town | 170 |
| Mertens | Town | 146 |
| Aquilla | City | 104 |
Abbott, on the frontage road south of Hillsboro, is where Willie Nelson was born in 1933. Carl's Corner incorporated around a truck stop at the I-35 and SH-31 interchange.
Where I-35 splits
North of Hillsboro the interstate becomes two separate highways: I-35E heads northeast through Waxahachie to Dallas, and I-35W heads north through Alvarado and Burleson to Fort Worth. They do not rejoin until Denton, 100 miles up the road. Anything signed plain I-35 south of the split runs on through Abbott and West toward Waco, Temple and Austin.
- U.S. 77 – the pre-interstate route, still signed through Hillsboro, Itasca and Abbott.
- SH-171 – northwest from Hillsboro through Covington toward Cleburne in Johnson County.
- SH-22 – west from Hillsboro through Whitney to the Brazos crossing and Meridian.
- SH-31 – east from Carl's Corner toward Corsicana; west it runs toward Waco.
- SH-174 – north from Blum through Rio Vista to Cleburne and Burleson.
- SH-81 – the old Fort Worth–Waco highway, parallel to I-35W through Itasca.
Lake Whitney and the Brazos
The Corps of Engineers finished Whitney Dam on the Brazos in 1951, backing water up the river along the Hill–Bosque line and into the limestone bluffs at the county's western edge. Lake Whitney State Park is on the Hill County shore below the town of Whitney, and the lake is one of the few in North Texas with rocky shoreline and clear water rather than mudflats. Smaller Aquilla Lake, on Aquilla Creek southwest of Hillsboro, was built later for water supply and flood control.
The courthouse that burned
The Hill County courthouse of 1890 is a limestone and cast-iron pile with a clock tower, built to a design by W. C. Dodson. On 1 January 1993 a fire gutted it, leaving the walls standing and the interior destroyed. Rather than replace it, the county rebuilt the courthouse over the following six years using the surviving stonework and archival drawings; a benefit concert by Willie Nelson helped raise the money. It reopened in 1999 and still anchors the Hillsboro square, four blocks off the interstate. Hill College, the county's public two-year college, is on the north side of town.