Preston Carlton

Preston Carlton

Written by Cathy Kincaid Wednesday, 07 March 2007

Preston Carlton’s roots in the hill country go back to when Texas was a republic. His great-grandfather immigrated from England in 1830 in search of his fortune. He served in the Texas Republic army and received a bounty grant from the Republic for 240 acres of land.

Preston Carlton’s roots in the hill country go back to when Texas was a republic. His great-grandfather immigrated from England in 1830 in search of his fortune. He served in the Texas Republic army and received a bounty grant from the Republic for 240 acres of land.

“My great-grandfather Benjamin Levitt found the track of land that he just couldn’t live without and built his home and raised his family,” Carlton said. “It was on a grassy knoll surrounded by three creeks, Long Hollow, Big Sandy and Falls Hollow.”

Levitt added acreage through the years and built a school first called Red Bluff and then Volente for the area children.

Carlton says he has old aerial pictures of the area with a farmer and his mule team in view. However, when Carlton, who turned 70 in February, was three years old, the completion of the Mansfield Dam created Lake Travis, and the home where his grandmother, father and he was born, was covered with water.

Perhaps this early pioneer ancestor spurred Carlton to bring his visions of progress to Cedar Park. To help pay off hospital bills after his mother’s death, he decided to leave the ranching business, go into real estate and set up shop in Cedar Park in 1963.

“I knew in my own mind that this area was going to be developed,” Carlton said. “I wanted to have some influence over how this country was developed. I always thought there should be a road from IH 35 because it is the gateway to the highland lakes,” Carlton said. “You could take that road and go all the way to Lake Buchanan.”

It was with this thought in mind that in 1972, he began approaching the county commissioners and local landowners that there was a need for an east-west road north of RM 620 which would connect US 183 to IH 35.

It is difficult today to imagine Cedar Park without FM 1431, but at that time the only road going west was a gravel road which stopped at CR 185 (where the Holiday Inn Express on FM 1431 is today).

“I knew every property owner between here and IH 35,” he said. “I had a couple of men who worked with me, and we talked all but three of the owners into donating land to the county. The three were small tracks of land and they couldn’t afford to donate the land, so the county bought them.”

The county then approached the Texas Department of Transportation and after a haggle over building a 60 ft. or a 200 ft. right of way, the road construction began. Fifteen years after the efforts began, FM 1431 west of US 183 opened in 1987.

“People sometimes say to me, why Cedar Park, why would you go there?” Carlton said. “But we’re talking about a destination. We’re talking about what makes us great. You’ve got the lakes. You are just a few miles from several places of higher education and hospitals – one new one right along 1431.”