Brushy Creek Had One Crossing Here for a Century. The Third One Goes Over Hairy Man Road.

From Hairy Man Road you can now look up at a bridge. Since October 22, four lanes of Wyoming Springs Drive have run above the old road. The divided roadway reaches north from Creek Bend Boulevard to Old Settlers Boulevard and crosses Brushy Creek along the way. On the Community Impact report on the opening, the new section is just over half a mile long, with sidewalks on both sides and a shared-use path.

For more than a hundred years there was only one way across the creek here, and it was a low-water crossing on the road named for a local legend. The new extension is the first crossing here built with a path into Williamson County's regional trail. It also passes over Hairy Man Road on a bridge, so the old road and its tree canopy stay where they are, below the new traffic.

How the creek got its crossings

The City of Round Rock's Local Legends page tells the story of the first crossing through the Sauls family. Wade Sauls Sr. was born in 1879. For 36 years he oversaw the Palm Farm, and he was known as "the Cotton King" because he was the only local farmer who could get a bushel of cotton per acre. Near one of his farms, he built a low-water crossing on Hairy Man Road in 1911. The city's history says it stayed the only crossing until Creek Bend Boulevard opened. The Creek Bend extension over Brushy Creek arrived in the 2010s, a few years before City Council approved the Wyoming Springs design contract in 2019.

So the creek had one crossing here for more than a century, then two for less than a decade. This fall the count went to three.

The new road waited a long time, too. In the City of Round Rock's opening announcement, the extension has been part of the Transportation Master Plan since 1999. City Council approved the design contract in August 2019, and construction started in November 2024. "This project has been on the books for more than 25 years, and it's exciting to finally see it open to traffic," Public Works Executive Director Michael Thane said in that announcement.

Why a crossing counts for so much here

Williamson County Precinct 3 Commissioner Valerie Covey spoke at the ribbon cutting, and Community Impact reported her explanation of why the project matters:

"This is an important road … for two reasons. One, because it gives another creek crossing, which is complicated in this area, so it helps spread out the traffic. But it also is a connection to our regional trail system."

Her two reasons line up with two groups of people who use this part of the creek.

Drivers first. The city calls the extension a new north-south connection in west Round Rock and an alternative route between Creek Bend Boulevard and Old Settlers Boulevard. It expects the road to ease congestion on Sam Bass Road, Creek Bend Boulevard and Old Settlers Boulevard. The city's project page says a limited number of Brushy Creek crossings pushes extra traffic onto FM 3406, Sam Bass Road and RM 620 as drivers head for I-35. Round Rock and Williamson County split the roughly $29.7 million cost. The money came from the city's Type B half-cent sales tax, certificates of obligation bonds and the county's Road Bond Program. Halff Associates designed the project and Capital Excavation Company built it.

Then people on foot and on bikes. The city says the extension's shared-use paths connect to the existing Brushy Creek Regional Trail, so pedestrians and cyclists have more ways to get through the area. In the design phase, the city's responses to public comments placed the west-side path's tie-in with the county trail at Hairy Man Road. That puts the new connection on the stretch of creek where the county trail runs past Olson Meadows Park.

What sits at the bottom of the bridge

According to Fern Bluff MUD, Olson Meadows Park is at 4200 Brushy Creek Road, which many people know as Hairy Man Road, and it adjoins the county's regional trail. The park has spring-fed ponds, trails and open green space. It also has four parking areas, two playscapes including one for toddlers, swings, practice fields, a pavilion, restrooms and a jogging trail. Pets must be on a leash.

The trail itself covers a lot of ground. On Williamson County's description, the Brushy Creek Regional Trail is about 7.75 miles long and mostly concrete. Its western portion starts just west of Great Oaks Drive and runs more than six miles to Twin Lakes Park in Cedar Park. Upstream on the same creek, Cedar Park's Brushy Creek Lake Park covers 90 acres around a 38-acre lake. It has a splash pad, a canoe and kayak launch, sand volleyball courts, an exercise station, and hike-and-bike and nature trails.

With sidewalks and a shared-use path built along the extension, the stretch between Old Settlers Boulevard and the creek now has a walking and cycling route that runs right beside the new road.

The road the bridge was built to protect

Hairy Man Road gets its own design section in the city's announcement. Engineers planned the project "with consideration for the surrounding natural environment, particularly the scenic Hairy Man Road corridor and Brushy Creek." They lined up the roadway to avoid removing trees where they could, and they added retaining walls and tree wells to protect root systems. Public meetings in 2020 and 2021 helped shape the final design, along with coordination with federal agencies. The city's project page also says some tree removal could not be avoided despite those measures.

The road's name comes with a story. KUT told it as a 19th-century tale. In it, a boy fell from a settlers' caravan during a storm and flood and was left behind. He grew up wild in the woods and frightened travelers on what became Hairy Man Road. Versions differ on how he died. Most end the same way, with his body never found and his spirit still on the road.

The story has had its own festival since 1994, according to Community Impact. This year's lineup included a 5K, contests, vendors, live music and family activities. Brushy Creek MUD set the 32nd annual Hairy Man Festival for Saturday, October 17, at Cat Hollow Park, 8320 O'Connor Drive, with free admission from noon to 5 p.m. The festival was set for five days before the ribbon cutting, so next October will be the first one held with a bridge over its namesake road.

What happens next on this side of the creek

The extension is one piece of a longer north-south route. In July, Community Impact reported that Commissioner Covey described future phases of Wyoming Springs Drive as a continuous route from RM 620 to RM 1431. That would give the west side an alternative to I-35 like the ones east of the interstate. The county will pay for construction, and the city is securing the right of way. At the ribbon cutting, Thane said the city will likely start work on extending the road north to RM 1431 and is actively securing land for it.

Covey also described the driving habit the northern phase is meant to change. "Right now you might take O'Connor to Great Oaks and go north," she said in that July report. "Well, you can take Wyoming Springs and go all the way to RM 1431" once both projects are finished.

Hairy Man Road has more work coming as well. The same report said a project at the intersection of Hairy Man Road, Sam Bass Road and Woods Boulevard is in the planning stages. In community meetings, residents have been most receptive to a "peanut-shaped" roundabout to ease congestion. The county's Sam Bass Road widening, the bond-funded project nearby, was marked complete in April.

So the work isn't done. For now, Brushy Creek has three crossings on this stretch. The oldest is the low-water crossing Wade Sauls Sr. built in 1911, and the newest runs on a bridge above it, with a path down to the trail.

At Ealy & Company, we follow projects like Wyoming Springs because a new crossing or trail link changes how a home near the creek works day to day. If you'd like to talk through how the new road and the planned northern extension affect your part of west Round Rock, we'd be glad to sit down with you. Inspire your next chapter: schedule a consultation.