"The only crossing until Creek Bend Boulevard opened in 2015." That line comes from the City of Round Rock's local history pages. It describes a low-water crossing on Hairy Man Road built in 1911 by a farmer named Wade Sauls Sr. For more than a hundred years, getting over Brushy Creek on that stretch of west Round Rock came down to one road. The area's best-known ghost story is set at that same creek.
On Saturday, Oct. 17, Brushy Creek Municipal Utility District holds the 32nd Hairy Man Festival at Cat Hollow Park. This month the City is also finishing the Wyoming Springs Drive extension, a four-lane bridge over Brushy Creek near the Hairy Man Road corridor. Its shared-use paths tie into the same regional trail the festival's 5K runs on. The legend is about how hard it was to get across this creek, and the festival arrives in the same month the creek becomes easier to cross.
A Legend About Getting Across the Water
The legend has more than one version, but every version starts with a crossing. Festival organizer Chloe Loflin told Community Impact that the story goes back to a stormy night in the 1800s. A family of settlers was traveling along the banks of Brushy Creek when a young boy fell out of their stagecoach. In the storm, nobody noticed. He survived alone in the woods and became a recluse with long hair covering his whole body. Over time he became protective of the woods and frightened travelers who came too close. Loflin said his spirit still lingers along Hairy Man Road.
A 2023 Texas Standard report from KUT tells it differently. In that version, the settlers were fleeing rising Brushy Creek floodwaters when the boy was lost. He grew up into a hermit who terrorized travelers, and a speeding stagecoach eventually trampled him. That telling still places the haunting at Brushy Creek.
Both versions share the same pieces: a creek, a wagon road and travelers trying to get past. It's folklore. The City's published list of historical markers has no entry for the Hairy Man or Hairy Man Road. The community started the festival in 1994 to celebrate what Loflin calls a "unique, eerie legend."
The Crossing Wade Sauls Built
The real history of Hairy Man Road starts with a person the City records name. Wade Sauls Sr. was born in 1879 to parents who had been enslaved. He oversaw the Palm Farm for 36 years and owned farmland northeast and southwest of Round Rock, where he raised cattle, hogs, horses and mules. People knew him as "the Cotton King" because he was the only local farmer who could get a bushel of cotton per acre. In 1911 he built the Hairy Man Road low-water crossing near one of his farms.
A crossing built in 1911 was still the only way over that part of the creek until 2015. Over that century the creek corridor stayed wooded while Round Rock grew all around it. A ghost story about travelers getting lost by the water held up well in a place where the road through it was a single low-water crossing.
The Bridge Being Finished This Month
The Wyoming Springs extension runs from Creekbend and Brightwater boulevards north over Brushy Creek to FM 3406, which is Old Settlers Boulevard. It's a new four-lane divided arterial with shared-use paths, and the City expects it to take pressure off FM 3406, Sam Bass Road and Creekbend Boulevard. In an April release, the City said there are so few crossings in this area that traffic builds on FM 3406, Sam Bass Road and RM 620 as drivers travel to and from I-35.
How long the road took:
- 1911: Wade Sauls Sr. builds the low-water crossing on Hairy Man Road.
- 1994: The first Hairy Man Festival.
- 1999: The Wyoming Springs extension is added to the City's Transportation Master Plan.
- 2015: Creek Bend Boulevard opens, giving the corridor its second crossing.
- August 2019: City Council approves the design contract.
- Nov. 18, 2024: Construction begins under a $25.9 million contract with Capital Excavation Company.
- October 2026: Community Impact's Sept. 23 roundup lists the project's timeline as ending this month.
The project went from the master plan to construction in 25 years. The City's most recent posted update, from August, listed the final layer of asphalt and pavement striping as the last major work and forecast an opening in late September to early October. As of Oct. 5, we haven't found a City announcement confirming the road is open. Check the City's project page before you plan a route around it.
The design was shaped by the creek corridor. The City says engineers set the alignment to avoid cutting trees wherever possible, used retaining walls and tree wells to keep fill off root zones, and followed the natural ground profile. They also coordinated with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and took input from public meetings in 2020 and 2021. In its April release the City said the shared-use paths, added based on community feedback, "will connect directly to the existing Brushy Creek Regional Trail in that area." The total cost is about $29.7 million.
The Trail the Bridge Plugs Into
The trail connection is the part of the project that festival weekend uses. Williamson County's Brushy Creek Regional Trail runs roughly 7.75 miles in total, counting a newer one-mile Phase V west of Chisholm Trail Road and a section of more than six miles that runs from west of Great Oaks Drive to Twin Lakes Park. The county's trail map shows Creekside Park, Champion Park, Olsen Meadows Park, Brushy Creek Lake Park, Brushy Creek Sports Park and Twin Lakes Park along the way.
The Hairy Man 5K starts at Creekside Park at 9 a.m. on Oct. 17 and follows the regional trail along Brushy Creek. It's a USATF-certified course that's open to runners and walkers. Entry is $20 per person or $45 per family and includes a race T-shirt. Online pre-registration closes at 9 a.m. on Friday, Oct. 16, and on-site registration opens 30 minutes before the start. The race uses the same creekside path the new Wyoming Springs paths are designed to join, along the creek the legend's travelers were trying to cross.
Oct. 17 at Cat Hollow Park, Hour by Hour
The festival runs from noon to 5 p.m. at Cat Hollow Park, 8320 O'Connor Drive. Admission is free. Organizers suggest bringing two nonperishable food items or $2 per person, which go to the Round Rock Serving Center. The posted schedule:
- 9 a.m. Hairy Man 5K
- Noon Festival opens, and Ivy Betanski sings the national anthem
- 12:05 The Musicians Woodshed House Band
- 12:15 Fun Gus & The Shrooms
- 1 p.m. Sauce contest
- 1:05 Tarah New and the Crew
- 1:50 Kinderdance
- 2 p.m. Costume contest
- 2:45 Dysfunkshun Junkshun
- 4:15 Reading of the legend
- 4:30 Hairiest Man Contest
- 5 p.m. Festival ends
Community Impact's preview also lists train rides, craft vendors, a pumpkin patch and pumpkin painting. The Round the Rock fall guide adds carnival games, inflatables and a petting zoo. The reading of the legend at 4:15 is the one time all day the story gets told in full, just before the Hairiest Man Contest closes things out.
Two things are worth confirming before you go. BCMUD's 2026 sponsorship form lists the festival as running until 5:30 p.m., while the public schedule says 5 p.m., so plan around the earlier time. We also didn't find 2026 parking or shuttle details on the festival page, so check bcmud.org/hairyman closer to the date.
St. Richard's Episcopal Church also holds its Pumpkin Palooza that Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at 1420 E. Palm Valley Blvd., with pumpkin bowling, sack races, putt-putt, a ring toss, crafts, face painting and food. If you run the 5K, eat lunch at Palooza and get to Cat Hollow by midafternoon, you'll catch the costume contest at 2, Dysfunkshun Junkshun's set and the legend reading in one day on either side of town.
When the Wyoming Springs paths link the bridge to the regional trail, the corridor where the legend was born will have its newest crossing. Briana Headley follows projects like this one in west Round Rock, from the date a road opens to how it changes trips you already take. If you'd like updates on Wyoming Springs or the Brushy Creek trail connections as they finish, let's connect.
