
In 1870, as the Houston and Great Northern Railroad began surveying Montgomery County’s first rail line, Galveston merchants Peter J. and Richard S. Willis, landholders in the county, donated a townsite to the railroad along the proposed route. By that time a number of farmers in the vicinity had already organized a Methodist congregation, which became the first church in the community of Willis. By 1872 the rail line had been extended through the town, and most of the businesses and residents of Danville, Montgomery, and Old Waverly had begun moving to the new town.