Posted: Fri, 30 Sep 2011 12:13 PM - 13,667 Readers

By: Benjamin Wermund

Gordon Wayne Hurd and his cousin Norman bought 2,400 acres on the southeast side of Lake Travis called Coke Ranch in 1969 for just $55,000.

Over the next 40 years, the pair turned that land into Horseshoe Bay: an incorporated city, a multimillion-

dollar community and home to nearly 5,000 people.

Wayne Hurd died Monday at age 88. His funeral service will be held this morning in the community he helped create and lived in for nearly four decades.

"He was a good-as-gold, genuine type of person. Sort of from the old school, we would say, back when things meant something," said Sam Tarbit, president of the development company the Hurds formed in the 1970s. "He spent his career just trying to do the right thing, treating everybody with respect, and he taught us a lot of good examples to follow."

Hurd was born April 6, 1923, in Brady. He served as a captain in the 124th Cavalry Regiment in World War II and graduated from Texas A&M in 1947.

He worked as a developer in the Dallas area, where he helped create the Las Colinas community. In the late 1960s, Norman Hurd found the Coke Ranch in Central Texas. Wayne Hurd was reluctant at first, but the two saw the need in Texas for a resort community like Horseshoe Bay would become, Tarbit said.

The Hurds formed the Horseshoe Bay development company in 1970 and began selling real estate late in 1971.

"We're still operating as the same company, which is kind of a feat in itself," Tarbit said. "Not too many real estate companies are around that long."

Wayne Hurd was involved in charities and was a member of the Church at Horseshoe Bay, Tarbit said. Hurd is survived by his wife, Eileen; daughters and sons-in-law Donna Lynn and Jim Smith and Donna Sue and Charlie Sugg; four grandchildren; and one great-granddaughter.

"He touched and enriched so many lives," Donna Sue Sugg said. "He was loyal; he was a visionary; he was a generous, soft-hearted man."

Hurd's service will be at 11 a.m. today at the Church at Horseshoe Bay. "There will be a big crowd out, I guarantee you," Tarbit said.

*  Story Contributed by: Benjamin Wermund