Hank Smith was born Heinrich Schmitt in Rossbrunn, Bavaria, in 1836. After the death of his father, the 14-year-old moved to Ohio. Before settling on his Cross B Ranch in Blanco Canyon, Smith sailed Lake Erie, joined a wagon train on the Santa Fe Trail, surveyed along the Missouri River, worked as a cowboy, interpreter, and Indian fighter, and fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. In 1878, Smith assumed ownership of the ranch, and completed construction of his new home, the Rock House. Smith and his wife Elizabeth Boyle were the first permanent settlers of Crosby County where they ran cattle and sheep and became involved community members.

Smith’s story is told in the Hank Smith Room at the Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum, which includes more than 45,000 artifacts from the county’s frontier history. A part of the museum was built as a replica of the Smith’s rock house.

Established in 1958 in a replica of the Hank Smith house, the first permanent home on the Llano located in Blanco Canyon, the Crosby County Pioneer Museum houses both a community center and some 45,000 artifacts culled from local history. It displays a comprehensive collection of Native American tools and artworks, as well as an early-20th-century Brush Automobile, a diorama of Blanco Canyon, and other exhibits documenting 700 years of tradition and culture. The museum is an excellent source of information on the Battle of Blanco Canyon, where the U.S. Army and Quanah Parker's band of Comanches fought in October 1871.

Adjacent to the museum is the Wayne J. Parker Center for the Study of Native American Cultures, a facility dedicated to the exhibition of artifacts gathered by historians and archeologists Choice Smith and Wayne Parker.