Rumor has it that there’s a fortune buried in Cypress. The story goes that Mexicans heading home from East Texas were carrying a lot of wealth with them when attacked by Indians somewhere along Cypress Creek in the early 1830s. With nothing better to do than defend themselves, they decided to use their spare time to dig a hole and put their Treasure in it. Whether any of the Mexicans survived or not, the tale concludes that the money’s still in the ground. To this day, optimists continue the search. (A favorite locale is where the Southern Pacific’s railroad tracks cross Cypress Creek, just south of the community.)

But even those who aren’t dreamers have found something to treasure: the quality of life in Cypress. Since the 1840s, this rural community has attracted settlers. True, it never lived up to the name Cypress “City,” which later boosters called it. The more realistic folks called it “Cypress Top,” even after the Houston & Texas Central Railway line reached the town in 1856. The earliest families in the area included the Zahns, the Bahrs, the Quades, Krahns, and Matzkes. They shared a post office with the Spring Creek settlement of Rosehill. Mail reached them by train. (Tomball, closer in to Houston , had to settle for delivery by horseback.) The immigrants were industrious, and the area soon had the usual commercial establishments: a corn-cracking mill, a cotton gin and a sawmill.

Cypress, as with other places along the Gulf Coast , benefited from the turn-of-the-century oil boom. However, with Cypress the drilling took an unusual turn . . . A crew looking for oil discovered a hot artesian well. Soon there was a “Houston Hot Well Sanitarium and Hotel” near the spot. City folks came up on the train from Houston to soak themselves in mineral baths. Huge concrete basins held the waters. Today the hotel is gone, and the site occupied by a shooting range; but the concrete basins remain.

Later, the good life became even livelier, with the construction of a dance hall-made of iron-on Huffmeister Road. A more mundane (but longer-lasting) building was the Juergen’s General Store, dating from 1898. Like the concrete basins at the mineral spring, this two-story structure is still present. However, unlike the basins, it’s still used for its original purpose.

The Kitzmann family also had a general store in Cypress , but later moved on to other endeavors: John A. Kitzmann, a repair shop for Fords in 1920, and followed this up with a Chevrolet facility in 1927, selling cars as well as servicing them.

Today Cypress sits alongside Hempstead Road , but the community was originally located north of where it is now. Despite nearly 150 years of changes, Cypress preserves an awareness of its heritage-and an awareness of its continuing charm in the modern world.