A Legacy of Lockhart: Snippets from Harry Hilgers

By Anthony Collins

LPR Editor                    

    At 98 years old, Harry Hilgers still carries the pride of his family and the memories of a time when Lockhart was smaller, simpler, and bound together by grit, sport, and tradition. His life tells not only of athletic promise and wartime sacrifice but also of deep family roots tied to the very soil and streets of Caldwell County. Below you will find  various snippets of Hilgers’ recollection on life in Caldwell County. 

    Hilgers is proud to say that the Hilgers/Gambrell family is the only one in town with two men in the Longhorn Hall of Honor, Tom Gambrell for baseball and Lan Hewlett for football. As a young man at Lockhart High School, class of 1944, Hilgers himself was just on the verge of stepping onto the field as a fast tailback under the legendary Coach Bible when history intervened. The Army called, and Hilgers traded the roar of Friday night crowds for the call of duty in World War II.

     Though his playing career was interrupted, Hilgers’ love of the game never left him. Years later, in 1952, his dedication to coaching bore fruit when he was voted Coach of the Year in El Paso, a recognition he calls his greatest honor.

    In those wartime years, when many coaches were away in the service, Lockhart had the good fortune of an unexpected presence. A man, quiet about his past, helped Sid Gambrell coach the team. Unknown to them then, he had once been one of Texas’s most celebrated running backs, a Childress High School star famous for his lightning-fast “end runs” against Wichita Falls.

     Hilgers recalls one practice day vividly. The mystery man asked if he could run a dash against Hilgers and Bill Blackwell, the two fastest boys at school. They lined up, confident in their speed, but before long, the man was ten yards ahead, glancing back over his shoulder and laughing. Hilgers has known many of Lockhart’s great athletes, but he declares this man the best of them all.

    Hilgers’ story stretches further back, into the heartbeat of Caldwell County’s agricultural days. Cotton was king, and mules were the lifeblood of the crop. His grandfather, Wm. Blanks, bred those mules, partnering with Maximo Michaelis of Kyle, who kept the giant jacks necessary for breeding. The mares came from Kentucky, strong and steady, built for the work that sustained families across the county.

    But Wm. Blanks was more than a mule breeder, he was a merchant. His General Store, right on the Lockhart square, offered everything a farmer might need, all on credit until harvest time. If a crop failed, payment was deferred another year. Across the street stood the Blanks Carriage Repository, where townsfolk could buy carriages of all shapes and sizes before automobiles began to take their place.

    Hilgers remembers how his mother, Blanks’ daughter, drove her own carriage drawn by two matched dapple-gray horses. In those days, the streets of downtown Lockhart were still unpaved, so horses and mules could travel safely without harm to their hooves.

   “I am so old that I can remember those days of long ago,” Hilgers says with a chuckle. Yet the years have not dimmed his clarity. His memories bridge eras, the age of carriages and mules, the sacrifice of a generation at war, the rise of Texas football legends, and the enduring pride of family.

    In the story of Harry Hilgers, Lockhart finds not just a man’s reminiscence, but a living link to its own past, a tale of sport, sacrifice, and the simple strength of community.