Almost a year after Hamilton Creek flooded his home on Bunk Gibbs Road in Burnet, Roger “Don” Newlin, 81, sat on his restored front porch surveying a rebuilt neighborhood. The lawns were newly mowed and green from recent, gentler rains than those that raged through the city of Burnet Housing Authority on July 5, 2025. Life is mostly back to normal for those who returned to this restored neighborhood in early 2026.

Inside, except for some new furniture, Newlin’s home looks much the same as it did before the disaster. His pride and joy, dozens of hand-carved wooden hot rods, were untouched, safe on a wall of shelves above the rising waters. Most of his homemade knives and knife cases also survived, as did his paintings.

A retired carpenter, Newlin said he always wanted to be an artist but got into carpentry to make a living.

“I don’t think I ever wanted to be anything but a carpenter, except maybe an artist,” he said. “I started drawing and painting when I was a kid, but I never did do anything with it. I’ve been a carpenter all my life.” 

Two large bird portraits—an owl and a rooster, also unharmed—attest to his talent, as do the numerous hand-carved hot rods. While the paintings date back a few decades, he didn’t begin carving hot rods until around 2018, a year after moving from Leander to Burnet. 

“It was something to do,” he said. “I got into seriously making them (a few years) after my brother passed away. He was a drag racer, and I tried to copy his drag car. He called it the Cantankerous.” 

A wooden model of Louis Harvey “L.H.” Newlin’s Cantankerous sits front and center in the large display, now returned to pride of place on a living room wall watched over by the bird paintings. Louis was born in Burnet in 1937 and died in Tolar, Texas, in 2012. He was an avid race car driver and received a lifetime achievement award from the Texas Blown Fuel Association. 

The Cantankerous model was such a success with the kinfolk that Newlin decided to try another, and then another, wooden hot rod. 

“I learned more what I needed to do as I made them,” he said. “I have no idea what it’s going to look like when I start. I’m not a mechanic, but I’m familiar with what they look like: open-wheel drag cars and street rods. My brother lived and breathed hot rods.” 

The cars are not for sale, though Newlin once set up a booth at a Bluebonnet Festival car show. 

“I’m not a peddler,” he said. “I tell people, ‘I’ll sell those cars, but you don’t want to pay the price I put on them.’” 

He did once sell 12 piggy banks he made. The wooden banks were shaped like milk cows, with a hay bale stopper in their chests to get the money out. Lift the cow’s tail, and out popped M&M candies. 

“I took one to a Whataburger in Cedar Park one time and ended up getting orders for 12 of them,” he said. “At $60 each, that was a good Christmas.” 

The Newlin brothers are part of a large local family with deep roots in Burnet County. 

The Newlin great-grandparents bought a farm in Burnet County in 1900, the same year they got married, Newlin said.

“My mother’s mother was born and raised in Bertram,” he continued. “Her dad was a Rawlings. I don’t know his given name. He was a Church of Christ minister and taught at Bertram High School. And he was a farmer.” 

His mother, Lorene Rogers Newlin Murphy, was well known in the community. 

“She was a published poet, and she was president of the AARP and on the President’s Council (on Aging),” he said. “She lobbied at the Capitol in Austin, and she and Lady Bird (Johnson) corresponded about wildflowers and such all the time.” 

Murphy lived in the same housing complex for 25 years, just two doors down from where Newlin now lives. He moved into the complex years after her death.

The family holds a reunion in Buchanan Dam each July, raising funds for the affair by auctioning off donated prizes from each head of household. Newlin always donates a wooden car.

The tight-knit group pulled together last July to help with Newlin’s recovery. A Kingsland cousin opened her home to nieces and nephews who showed up the day of the flood to clear out the mess. 

They packed up the cars and paintings and dried out Newlin’s personal papers. He spent the next six months with a niece in Glen Rose. 

On the night of the flood, Newlin was sitting on his small back porch, watching it rain. The creek was over its bank but didn’t look threatening. It wasn’t until he walked through his dry kitchen into the living room that he saw what was going on. The water was coming through the front door. 

“I walked back in and saw a tennis shoe walking by itself,” he said. “About that time, a fireman was knocking on the door. I put my shoes on and grabbed my phone.” 

Frontyard currents took him down halfway to his pickup truck, wrenching his phone from his grasp. Firefighters helped him back up. He used a neighbor’s phone to call his niece, who came to the rescue. His Kingsland cousin was already there. 

Today, Hamilton Creek flows peacefully just yards from his back door. A small portico that connects the kitchen to the back porch is a miniature workshop, with tools precisely placed, easy to hand. 

He hasn’t created a new hot rod since the flood but said he’ll get back to it soon. He’s been making knives from saw blades, fitted into hand-carved cases. Despite recent rains, he’s not worried about a repeat performance of the July 2025 catastrophe. 

“I don’t know that there’s anything they can do to stop it, truthfully, but I don’t expect that type of rain again for a long time,” Newlin said, recalling the 1966 flood in Longview when 16 inches of rain fell in 12 hours. “It’s an uncommon occurrence. But I don’t let a whole lot of stuff bother me too much. It doesn’t do yourself any good to worry yourself to death.”

He keeps the same frame of mind when crafting his handsize cars.

“Every one I build is kind of a new learning process,” he said. “I have no idea what it’s going to look like when I start. I start with tires and wheels, and I go from there. I don’t get in a hurry on it.” 

suzanne@thepicayune.com