page_title: Willis, Texas
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Willis, Texas / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Texas Historic Marker = Willis Cigar Factory
context_page_description: Willis is a city in Montgomery County, Texas, United States, located eight miles north of Conroe in north central Montgomery County. The city began to develop in 1870 after what is now a Union Pacific Railroad was built through the area. As a part of the Piney Woods, The Willis economy has historically been driven by lumber, agriculture, and the manufacture of lumber and agriculture equipment.
  As of 2010, the population of Willis was to be 5,662. In 2008, after Willis' population passed 5,000, the city established a home rule city charter.
context_section_description: Before the founding of Willis, most residents in the area lived in a settlement known as Danville, formed four miles west of present-day New Waverly in the 1830s. A few Danville residents in the 1850s settled south of Danville in what is now Willis.  Several of these early Danville residents were large slave plantation owners. About 600 of the estimated 1,000 early Danville residents in the 1850s were slaves. After the Civil War, many recently freed slaves lived in the Willis area, establishing Thomas Chapel United Methodist Church in 1867, the oldest church in Willis.
  In 1870, The Houston and Great Northern Railroad (now the Union Pacific Railroad) decided to build a railroad through Montgomery County. After residents of Danville refused to allow the railroad to be built through their town, Peter J. and Richard S. Willis donated a parcel of their landholdings in Montgomery County so that the railroad could travel through it, founding the town of Willis in the process. Upon the railroad's completion in 1872, many residents of the surrounding communities of Danville, Old Waverly, and Montgomery moved to the new town of Willis.
  In 1874, a county election was held to determine whether the county seat of Montgomery County should be transferred from the town of Montgomery to Willis. Although Willis received more votes (788 to 646), Willis did not receive the requisite two-thirds majority, so the county seat remained officially in Montgomery. A protracted legal battle ended in 1878 when the Supreme Court of Texas ruled in favor of Montgomery. With several county officials and Willis residents refusing to accept the results, another county seat election was held in 1880, with Montgomery winning the vote over Willis 1308 to 1243. The dispute between the two towns finally ended in 1889, when Conroe was selected as the county seat.
  In the 1870s, the main occupations were farming, shipping, and the manufacture of lumber and agricultural products. In 1891, local Willis residents start growing Cuban tobacco, turning Willis into a hub for the production of cigars and other tobacco products. During the early years of the Great Depression, Willis suffered from falling demand in lumber products and a sharp decline in the demand for tobacco products. The economy began to recover in 1931 during the Texas oil boom, when oil was discovered in the area. In the 1930s and 40s, the development of U.S. Route 75 along with the recovery of the lumber industry during World War II fully revitalized the local economy. In the mid to late 20th century through the present, agriculture and lumber remain vital components of the Willis economy, in addition to the retail, service, and manufacturing industries.
caption: Willis Cigar Factory. Texas Historic Marker, N. Bell St., Willis, TX
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