It was named for a family called Hamilton so the story goes, but for over a century the sometimes steam called Ham Branch has occasionally wound its way through Rockdale.
As of last month, it because two streams.
The U.S. Board on Geologic Names (USBGN) has notified City Manager Chris Whittaker is now officially applying the names “West Ham Branch” and “East Ham Branch” to the two drainages which meander their way through town which meet near Wilcox at the Union Pacific tracks and flow south out of town.
REQUEST—The name change was requested by the city. “It’s confusing and it’s been that way for a long time,” Whittaker said. “Everybody knows, and uses, the name ‘Ham Branch’ but sometimes it seems like any moving creek water through town gets called by that name.”
For the record, the stream from where the two branches join southward will still be called just “Ham Branch.”
And of course the two “new” branches aren’t new at all, they are the same familiar streams which are either flooding or need mowing.
In the route descriptions that follow, remember for most of the time the “branches” are merely drainage areas and may not contain any water at all.
ROUTES—According to the USBGN, East Ham Branch is one-third of a mile long.
It forms in an area north of the city limits off FM 487 and flows southwest, passing under a number of city streets including Rice, San Gabriel, Ackerman, Main, Burleson (where extensive flood prevention work was done recently, San Andres, Scarbrough, Belton, Davilla and Bell before meeting the other branch, essentially at the eastern vehicle lot at Miller-Starnes Chevrolet-Buick.
The new stream formed by the two—now the “real” Ham Branch, continues southward under the highway.
West Ham Branch is longer, almost two miles.
According to the USBGN, West Ham Branch rises north of Linwood Acres just off the northwest quadrant of town and for almost half its length tracks east through a wooded area.
The drainage crosses CR 305 (Bushdale Road),then turns south to cross Wilcox north of the Rockdale Youth Baseball complex, and crosses Murray near the former Girl Scout House.
Then it crosses under Davilla, passes across the street from the fire station goes under Bell and joins with East Ham Branch.
“We’re just hoping it will make things a little easier to have an east and west branch,” Whittaker said. “Especially since toward the end here they run within a block of each other.”
There’s actually another named branch within the city limits.
Rockdale Branch flows over East Belton Avenue at the low water crossing. But that sometimes stream is keeping its name.
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