AUSTIN (KXAN) — Williamson County held a ribbon-cutting ceremony Friday afternoon for its Expo Center West Arena project in Taylor. The center features a 78,750-square-foot covered arena, which the county has named the “Friendship Pavilion” after a town that’s now submerged under Granger Lake.
The expo center was designed by Austin-based architecture firm Parkhill and built by Bartlett Cocke General Contractors. Voters approved $10.7 million in funding for the project in 2023.
Construction started in December 2024. Williamson County Commissioner Russ Boles said at the time the new center would be a space for the people who “made us … the farmers and the ranchers.”
“The expo center’s a spot for them to learn. It’s a spot for them to compete,” Boles said in 2024. “It’s a spot for them, that they can bring their kids and carry on the traditions that have made Williamson County so great.”
Boles, along with other county officials, was joined at the ribbon cutting by members of the Williamson County Fair and Rodeo Association.
“It’s a way to show respect … and honor to the town,” said Russell Fishbeck, Williamson County’s parks director. “The name itself [also] represents what we do here at the Expo. We come together as friends, have fun events and bring the community together.”
The lost town of Friendship
The lost town of Friendship, Texas, was originally founded in the 1880s, according to the nonprofit Texas State Historical Association, or TSHA. Previously, the Tonkawa Tribe called the San Gabriel River Valley home until 1884, when the U.S. forcibly moved the tribe to Oklahoma during the Trail of Tears.
Friendship was located approximately 45 miles northwest of Austin, and “once had a church, a school, a cooperative association, a general store, a gin, and a community center,” TSHA’s entry on the town reads.
However, it was “inundated by destructive floodwaters from the San Gabriel River in 1913, 1921 and 1958,” according to Williamson County’s press release about the ribbon cutting. TSHA said that the 1921 flood also destroyed the nearby town of Allison, which led to some of those residents moving to Friendship.
Ultimately, a decision was made for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to build a dam for flood control in the area. The project required residents of Friendship to abandon the nearly 100-year-old town. Work on the Laneport Dam (later renamed to the Granger Dam) started in October 1972 and ended in January 1980.
Since then, what’s left of the town has been at the bottom of Granger Lake.
The town’s current residents are white bass, crappie and catfish, according to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department. Otters have also been spotted in the lake by KXAN viewers.
If you have old photos of the former town of Friendship, please consider sending them to us so we can help tell the town’s story.
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