William Letchworth "Uncle Billy" Hurst, a native of Tennessee, served in the Confederate Army during the Civil War as a member of the Sixty-First Tennessee Infantry and was involved in fighting near Vicksburg, Mississippi. After his unit surrendered to Gen. Ulysses S. Grant in 1863 and he was released, he joined in the reorganization of his outfit as the Sixty-First Tennessee Mounted Infantry. Captured in December 1863 near Tazwell, Tennessee, he spent the rest of the war in military prisons in Kentucky and Illinois. In 1870, Hurst and his wife Mary (Lynch) joined other Claiborne County, Tennessee, residents who had migrated to Texas. By adding property to his first land purchase in 1872, he became a prominent land speculator in the area. In 1903 he granted a right-of-way across his farm for construction of a Rock Island rail line, and in exchange the company named a rail stop and depot for him, which later became the town of Hurst. Honored for many years by friends and relatives with festive birthday celebrations, he was the father of 14 children and had over 100 grandchildren, and many family descendants still live in the area.