Unless otherwise noted, the following articles are from the New Handbook of Texas, © The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.
BLANCO, TEXAS. Blanco is on U.S. Highway 281 twelve miles south of Johnson City in south central Blanco County. In 1853 pioneer stockmen built cabins along the Blanco River near the present site of the town and prepared to defend themselves against Indian attack. In 1854 the operators of the Pittsburgh Land Company, including Gen. John D. Pitts, A. M. Lindsey, F. W. Chandler, William E. Jones, and Capt. James H. Callahan, purchased the league granted to Horace Eggleston by the government of Coahuila and Texas in 1835. They laid out the town of Pittsburgh, named for General Pitts, across the river from the site of future Blanco. That same year a Methodist church was organized by circuit rider Daniel Rawls. The congregation met in a log cabin built to withstand Indian raids, which also served as a school. The Twin Sisters Masonic Lodge, organized at Curry's Creek perhaps as early as 1856, moved to Pittsburgh around 1857.
When Blanco County was organized in 1858, an election located the county seat across the river from Pittsburgh, and named the townsite Blanco for the Blanco River. The Pittsburgh Land Company gave the new town 120 acres of land. In 1858 a post office was established. Mail service was temporarily discontinued with the beginning of the Civil War, but the citizens raised money to bring mail once a week from New Braunfels in order to receive the war news. The first Baptist church was organized in 1859. In 1860 the first courthouse was built on the public square by A. V. Gates for about $600.
In spite of hardships suffered during the Civil War, the town continued to grow and by 1870 had four stores, a hotel, and a gin. The old union church, built in 1871 at a cost of $1,300, remained for many years the center of town life. It was used as a church by different denominations, as a schoolhouse, and as a community meeting place. In 1874 the Masons drew up a charter for Blanco Masonic University. A foundation was laid, but building was discontinued because of a lack of funds. A new courthouse of native stone was built in 1875 by Frederick E. and Oscar Ruffini, architects. In 1876 a fire destroyed the Masonic lodge, the old courthouse, and all of the county records. The same year the residents of Johnson City made their first attempt to have the county seat relocated by petitioning for an election. They were unsuccessful. In 1884 the citizens of Blanco formed a joint stock company to raise the capital necessary to establish a high school. They elected a board of directors and a president and applied for a charter for Blanco High School under the Private Corporations Act. A two-story building was built on the foundation of the Masonic university. It opened in October 1884, and the first class graduated in 1887. In 1890 Johnson City won a county seat election, and Blanco lost its position as county seat; the courthouse records were moved to Johnson City in 1891. The rivalry between the two towns that began with this election is still hot.
Blanco has primarily been a ranch and farm trade center. It had a population of 469 in 1904 and 1,100 by 1939, when the town was incorporated. By 1946 the town had forty businesses, a hospital, and a weekly newspaper, the Blanco County News. The population dropped in the 1940s to 453 before increasing again in the 1950s. In 1980 the census reported 1,179 residents in Blanco. There were forty-six businesses. In 1990 the population was 1,238. Christ of the Hills Orthodox Monastery is nearby.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Austin American-Statesman, November 14, 1993. Kathleen E. and Clifton R. St. Clair, eds., Little Towns of Texas (Jacksonville, Texas: Jayroe Graphic Arts, 1982). John W. Speer, A History of Blanco County (Austin: Pemberton, 1965).
Bessie Brigham
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.BLOWOUT COMMUNITY, TEXAS. Blowout Community, a settlement fifteen miles northwest of Johnson City in northwestern Blanco County, dates back to 1854. That year a party of two dozen homesteaders from Kentucky settled on the east side of Comanche Creek near Comanche Spring, about three miles below the creek's origin. As more settlers moved into the area the small community of Blowout developed upstream from the spring. The name came from Blowout Cave, located in a hillside east of Comanche Creek about a mile above Comanche Spring. The cave was at one time home to thousands of bats, and a great deposit of guano accumulated in it. Supposedly, ammonia and other gases from the decomposing guano built up in the cave, and when lightning struck at the cave mouth the gases exploded–hence the name Blowout. Today there is little trace left of Blowout Community or the settlement at Comanche Spring. Only isolated ranchhouses remain at those sites, and only scattered ranches can now be found among the rocky hills along Comanche Creek.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Gunnar Brune, Springs of Texas, Vol. 1 (Fort Worth: Branch-Smith, 1981).
Richard Bruhn
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.CURRY'S CREEK SETTLEMENT. Curry's (Currie's) Creek Settlement, three miles west of the site of present Kendalia in east Kendall County, was named for an early settler. It consisted of a number of homesteads along a five-mile stretch of Curry Creek. The settlement was founded about 1847 when Samuel B. Patton established a homestead at the site. Patton later became the first county judge of Blanco County. Early settlers included Judge William Jones, who established a sawmill on Curry Creek in 1850. John S. Hodges built a saw and grist mill. Parson Daniel Rawls, one of the Old Three Hundred, built the first cotton gin in the county in 1853. Another early settler by the name of Robison built a gristmill that also served as the location for a Masonic lodge chartered in 1858. The charter was moved to Blanco a year later. By the late 1850s Curry's Creek Settlement comprised more than 100 residents, supported by a farming and ranching economy. George Wilkins Kendall introduced sheep ranching in the area in the 1850s. A local post office opened in 1863 but closed in 1900; postal records had been transferred to nearby Kendalia in 1895. The population of Curry's Creek Settlement began to decline in 1880. Kendalia held a centennial celebration for the founding of the settlement in 1947. By the 1980s a few graves and remnants of homesteads were the only remaining signs of Curry's Creek Settlement.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kendall County Historical Committee, Kendall County Scrapbook (Kendalia, Texas, Public Library). Kathleen E. and Clifton R. St. Clair, eds., Little Towns of Texas (Jacksonville, Texas: Jayroe Graphic Arts, 1982).
Laurie E. Jasinski
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.From Heritage of Blanco County, Texas by the Blanco County News, 1987: p. 179-180:
Before the town of Blanco was organized and while Boerne was a small hamlet, the settlement of Curry's Creek was a flourishing community with a population of more than 100. Men lived here who helped make Texas history.
Nothing is known of the man Curry. There is a legend that he drowned in the creek bearing his name.
In 1847 Judge Samuel B. Patton and his family with three grown sons, Pickney, Columbus and James, moved to upper Curry's Creek. Patton became the first chief justice of Blanco County, he was elected April 12, 1858. At this time the land was in Blanco County (previously, it had been in Guadalupe,. Comal, now Blanco, and later Kendall). Patton died at the age of 82 and was buried in the yard of his Curry Creek home. The grave under a large oak tree is enclosed with thick cypress boards and is now in a cultivated field.
Another early settler was Judge W.E. Jones, who had had a colorful life before coming to the settlement. In 1842 while holding court in San Antonio, General Adrian Woll invaded the town and took the officials to Mexico where they were held in the infamous Perote prison. After about a year, Judge Jones, Samuel Maverick and Judge Anderson Hutchinson were released through the efforts of Waddy Thompson, the US minister to Mexico. Chains were taken off the three on March 19, 1843 and they were released in April. Jones and his wife, Hezziah had seven sons, all of them spent some time with the Texas Rangers. One son, Frank, was killed while on duty on the Mexican border June 30, 1893.
Coming with Judge Jones were the Lawhon brothers, Jesse and John. Jesse was overseer for Judge Jones and while he and a black boy were hunting for stray horses they were surprised by an Indian band and Jesse was killed (1855). The boy escaped. John Lawhon settled on lower Curry Creek where he farmed and raised stock. Two small cemeteries are there.
Jesse Lindsey McCrocklin, a Scotch-Irishman, came from Kentucky. He first settled at Washington-on-the-Brazos. His wife was Isabell Harris. McCrocklin was at the Battle of San Jacinto and also on the Somervell Expedition. For his military service he was given a large tract of land in what was then Blanco County.
Parson Daniel Rawls was one of Austin's "Old 300" and on the 1840 census was in Nacogdoches County with 320 acres, 12 slaves, 10 cows, 2 horses and a gold watch. He brought 50 slaves here and settled on a creek that bears his name. He built the first cotton gin in the county. In 1854 he organized the Methodist Church in Blanco. Later he married the widow of Jesse Lawhon.
Capt. John W. Sanson was serving with the Texas rangers when the Smith brothers, Clint and Jeff, were stolen by Indians in 1869. He, with other men of the settlement, followed until the Indians set fire to the tall grass and the dogs could no longer follow the trail.
Perhaps the most famous settler was George Wilkins Kendall, editor of the "New Orleans Picayune". In 1844 he went witht he ill-fated Santa Fe Expedition. He received more fame as war correspondent during the war with Mexico in 1846. Also, through his efforts sheep raising was started.
Dr. James Crispin NOwlin with slave labor built a large rock house. He raised fine horses. It was here that in 1868 Francis Kaiser killed an Indian who was attempting to steal some of these horses.
Still standing is the house with a slot in the door for letters for the Curry Creek post office.
So many, many of these settlers have not been named in this short history. In 1947 Kendalia held a Centennial celebrating the founding of this settlement.
CYPRESS MILL, TEXAS. Cypress Mill is on Farm Road 962 thirteen miles northeast of Johnson City in northeastern Blanco County. The area was settled in the late 1860s, when Wilhelm Fuchs and his family built a mill on Cypress Creek. The community that developed there was at first called Fuch's Mill; the name Cypress Mill came into use after a post office opened in 1874. By the mid-1880s the community had grist and saw mills, a cotton gin, and 130 residents. The principal shipments made by area farmers were cotton, cattle, and wool. Cypress Mill reached a peak population of 200 around 1900 but began to decline soon thereafter, and by the early 1940s its population had fallen to thirty. Its population rose to sixty by the late 1940s, and several houses and a business marked the community on county highway maps, but in 1958 the Cypress Mill post office was discontinued. The community's population was reported at seventy-six in 1970 and at fifty-six in 1980 and 1990.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Blanco County News, Heritage of Blanco County (Dallas: Curtis Media Corporation, 1987).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.
HYE, TEXAS. Hye is on U.S. Highway 290 near the Gillespie county line ten miles west of Johnson City in western Blanco County. Whites settled the area in 1860 when a number of farming and ranching families moved to Rocky Creek, three miles east of the site of present Hye. Rocky, as this area of settlement came to be called, continued to grow steadily throughout the 1860s and 1870s with the influx of both German and Anglo settlers. In 1880 Hiram G. (Hye) Brown, for whom the community was later named, built a small store and house south of the Pedernales River on the Austin-Fredericksburg road at the location of present Hye. Brown had come with his parents to Rocky eight years earlier. In 1886 he established a post office at Hye, which he operated as part of his general store. After the post office came in, other businesses were begun in the area, including a gristmill and a blacksmith shop. In 1906 a cotton gin was erected at Hye, and it continued to operate until 1945. In 1904 Brown built a new structure to house the post office and his business on the south side of the road just opposite its old location. This building, the Hye General Store and Post Office, which in 1966 was entered in the state archives as a Recorded Texas Historical Landmark, still stands today and continues to serve its original function. Hye gained particular attention in 1965 when President Lyndon Johnson used the front porch of the post office as the setting for his appointment of Lawrence F. O'Brien as United States Postmaster General. Johnson, whose boyhood home is nearby, also claimed to have mailed his first letter at the age of four from the Hye post office. The population of Hye was estimated at 200 during the 1920s and 1930s. It dropped to fifty during World War II and then climbed gradually from ninety in 1947 to a postwar high of 140 in 1968. From 1970 to 1990 it was estimated at 105.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Dallas News, November 4, 1965. John Moursund, Blanco County Families for One Hundred Years (Austin, 1958). John Moursund, Blanco County History (Burnet, Texas: Nortex, 1979).
Richard Bruhn
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.
JOHNSON CITY, TEXAS. Johnson City, the county seat of Blanco County, is at the junction of U.S. highways 281 and 290, twelve miles north of Blanco in the central part of the county. Settlers living along the Pedernales River in the rugged central part of the county, among them one James Polk Johnson, for whom the town was later named, thought that the county seat at Blanco was not accessible, so in 1876 they called for an election to move the courthouse closer to the geographical center of the county. When this attempt failed, the citizens followed Johnson's lead and began publicizing the idea of establishing a new community. The site chosen was on land originally granted to James Fentress, which belonged to Johnson. A post office was established there in 1878, and soon afterwards town lots were offered for sale. In 1879 the people successfully petitioned for an election to choose a new county seat but were defeated. Meanwhile, the town continued to grow, especially boosted by the construction of Johnson's two-story office building and his hotel. He also donated lots for schools. In 1890 another county seat election, a hotly contested one, made Johnson City the county seat.
Though its new status boosted the economy of the community, Johnson City did not get modern utilities until the 1930s, when Lyndon Baines Johnson, a relative of the founder of the city, sponsored legislation that introduced full electric power to the area under the Lower Colorado River Authority and the Pedernales Electric Cooperative. After Johnson became a United States senator and began his climb to the presidency, telephone service rapidly progressed from the old magnetic box phones to dial service and then to worldwide service. In addition, when he returned from the White House, Johnson made the United States a gift of his lands, now the Lyndon Baines Johnson National Historical Park.
Johnson City, for many years mainly a ranch trade center, had a steady tourist business from its origins. Though the number of businesses dropped from twenty in 1914 to seven in 1933, it rose to forty-two in the mid-1950s, when the town was incorporated. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, when Johnson was president of the United States, the major income in Johnson City came from the tourist industry, and the number of businesses rose to fifty-two. By 1986 the number had dropped to twenty-six. The town's newspaper, the Record-Courier, was established in 1883. The population fluctuated from 400 in 1925 to 950 in the late 1940s, and from 660 to 800 between the late 1960s and the mid-1980s. Johnson City continues to be mainly a tourist center. In 1990 the population was 932.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Austin American, November 12, 1963. John W. Speer, A History of Blanco County (Austin: Pemberton, 1965). Kathleen E. and Clifton R. St. Clair, eds., Little Towns of Texas (Jacksonville, Texas: Jayroe Graphic Arts, 1982).
Mary H. Ogilvie
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.
LINDENDALE, TEXAS. Lindendale is twenty-four miles northeast of Boerne on Farm Road 1888 in northeastern Kendall County. It was named for the linden trees that grew along the Blanco River. Settlement of the area began in the 1860s, when the Gates family arrived and established an apple orchard. J. C. Hoge donated five acres with a log cabin for the Mount Glen school, which was later renamed Lindendale. The school had one teacher and twenty-seven students in 1905; it served the Lindendale area until the district was consolidated with the Blanco schools in 1951. A community center marked Lindendale on county highway maps in the 1980s, but no population estimates were available.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Kendall County Historical Commission, A History of Kendall County, Texas (Dallas: Taylor, 1984). Garland A. Perry, Historic Images of Boerne, Texas (Boerne: Perry Enterprises, 1982).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.MOUNTAIN VIEW, TEXAS. Mountain View was reported to be a ranching community on a mail route from Johnson City in northeastern Blanco County in the 1940s. No population figures have been recorded for the community, and by 1948 it was not shown on county highway maps.
Claudia Hazlewood
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.PEYTON, TEXAS. Peyton (Payton), formerly known as Peyton Colony and Board House (Boardhouse), is near Boardhouse Creek just west of the junction of Farm roads 165 and 2325, seven miles east of Blanco in southeastern Blanco County. The settlement was called Freedman's Colony by white inhabitants of the area, when it was founded around 1865 by Peyton Roberts, an exslave from Lockhart, who had acquired public land there by preemption. Other freedmen followed suit, and though preemption technically ended in 1876, land patents in the area continued to be issued as late as 1880. In 1872 or 1874 the first church in the area was built on land donated by Jim Upshear, who had come with his wife to Peyton by wagon train from Virginia. Also built was a small log schoolhouse. A post office operated in Peyton from 1898 to 1909. Another post office operated from 1918 to 1930, but it was officially named Board House because it was located in A. V. Walker's board house, the first in the community. Though Board House has not appeared on Texas maps since then, Peyton still existed in the 1990s and housed the descendants of many of the original settlers. Community life centered around the Mount Horeb Baptist Church.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Austin American-Statesman, August 6, 1954. T. Lindsay Baker, Ghost Towns of Texas (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1986). San Antonio Light, Supplement, August 11, 1985.
Mary H. Ogilvie
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.POST OAK, TEXAS. Post Oak is a rural community in western Blanco County eight miles northwest of Johnson City, at the junction of Farm roads 2721 and 1320 near Post Oak Creek. It was founded around 1874 by Pinkney Hickson, who donated a half acre of land for a school and two acres of land for a cemetery. Though the school at Post Oak was consolidated with those at Johnson City in the late 1930s, about fifteen families were still living in the community in 1958.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Johnson City Record-Courier (Blanco County Centennial Edition, August 1, 1958).
Mary H. Ogilvie
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.ROUND MOUNTAIN, TEXAS. Round Mountain is at the junction of U.S. Highway 281 and Farm Road 962, on the eastern part of the Edwards Plateau eleven miles north of Johnson City in northern Blanco County. The first settler, Joseph Bird, arrived in 1854 and built a log house near the creek. The post office was established in 1857, and the town was named after a local landmark. This was the second post office in Blanco County. Round Mountain became a stage stop on the mail route between Austin and Fredericksburg. In 1871 residents obtained a charter from the state of Texas for a school and founded an academy that at one time had 200 students. Round Mountain became known as a health resort due to its elevation. It flourished with churches, doctors' offices, drug and grocery stores, a shoe shop, a blacksmith shop, a livery stable, and, later, a gin. In 1890 the town had a population of 200 and six businesses. By 1896 the number of residents had doubled to 400, but only five businesses were listed. The population declined after 1900. In 1931 the school was consolidated with the Johnson City Independent School District, and the churches closed. The population was reported at 100 from the 1920s through the early 1950s. It decreased from eighty in 1952 to seventy-three in 1972. In 1990 it was fifty-nine. The town was incorporated in 1989, at which time it had a post office, professional offices, a bank, an auction barn, a volunteer fire department, an assembly plant, and nine other businesses. Longhorn Downs is within the city limits. Joseph Bird's log house of 1854 has been restored, the Round Mountain Stagecoach Inn and Stable of 1874 has been placed in the National Register of Historic Places, and the Methodist church, built in 1876, has been restored.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: John Moursund, Blanco County History (Burnet, Texas: Nortex, 1979).
Mae Lindsey Hernlund
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.SANDY, TEXAS. Sandy is at the junction of Farm roads 1320 and 1323, seven miles northwest of Johnson City in northwestern Blanco County. In the mid-nineteenth century settlers moved to Sandy from the Deep South, drawn to the area by the abundant water and fertile, sandy soil. In spite of frequent raids by Indians, a Sandy post office was established in 1872. The communities of Hickory, Spring Creek, and White Oak had been established nearby by the early 1880s. Each settlement had its own one-room school, but by 1925 all had merged into one at Sandy, and two teachers were hired to work there. This school was later consolidated with the schools at Johnson City. According to estimates, the population in Sandy fluctuated after 1925 but never rose above thirty. In the 1980s the post office there served only twenty-five residents, most of whom were involved in the turkey industry. In 1990 the population was still reported at twenty-five.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Johnson City Record-Courier, Blanco County Centennial Edition, August 1, 1958. Fred I. Massengill, Texas Towns: Origin of Name and Location of Each of the 2,148 Post Offices in Texas (Terrell, Texas, 1936).
Mary H. Ogilvie
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.TOSCA, TEXAS. Tosca was in northwestern Blanco County on the Blanco-Gillespie county line twelve miles northwest of Johnson City. A post office was established there in 1915 but closed in 1931. There is no longer any evidence of the town's existence.
Mary H. Ogilvie
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.TWIN SISTERS, TEXAS. Twin Sisters is on the Little Blanco River and U.S. Highway 281, seven miles south of Blanco in southernmost Blanco County. It was named for a pair of prominent nearby hills, which form a landmark visible for miles around. Settlement of the area apparently began when Joel Cherry, a Tennessean, homesteaded on the Little Blanco in 1854. Cherry was quickly followed by many more English and German settlers. By the late 1850s Twin Sisters had become the center of German settlement in what is now Blanco County. In 1856 the homesteaders petitioned for and received a post office, the first post office in the boundaries of present Blanco County. Postal service was suspended during the Civil War but resumed thereafter as the area's population continued to grow. By 1890 Twin Sisters had three general merchandise stores, a gristmill, and a cotton gin. Max Krueger owned the mill, the gin, and one of the stores. Krueger had come to Twin Sisters in 1875 and, in addition to pursuing his business interests, had served the town as postmaster and justice of the peace. He built a dance hall and a bowling alley, for which he imported beer from St. Louis. When the transportation costs became too high, he opened a small brewery nearby but failed to produce any beer because the brewery lacked cooling facilities. After a series of drunken brawls and shoot-outs at the dance pavilion, however, Krueger discontinued operation of his entertainment ventures. A drought from 1894 to 1896 drove many local farmers and ranchers into bankruptcy. Krueger was also forced to sell out. His eldest son, Willy, later returned and bought back the combined post office and general store at Twin Sisters, where he stayed on as postmaster and merchant until the 1940s. The Twin Sisters post office was closed in 1951, and mail service was moved to Blanco. In recent decades the community's economy, like that of the rest of Blanco County, has been dominated by ranching and farming. The estimated population of Twin Sisters from 1970 to 1990 was seventy-eight.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Max A. P. Krueger, Second Fatherland: The Life and Fortunes of a German Immigrant, ed. Marilyn M. Sibley (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1976). John Moursund, Blanco County Families for One Hundred Years (Austin, 1958). John Moursund, Blanco County History (Burnet, Texas: Nortex, 1979).
Richard Bruhn
© The Texas State Historical Association, 1997.
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