Willis, Texas

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 2016, the population of Willis was estimated to be 6,370. In 2008, after Willis' population passed 5,000, the city established a home rule city charter.GeographyWillis is located at .According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 3.3sqmi, all of it land.HistoryBefore 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.