Dripping Springs, Texas

Everything Dripping Springs is known for

11 songs mention this city 5 artists from here

RoadyGoat plays music like this when you drive through Dripping Springs. It's free on iPhone, and full songs play through Apple Music.

Dripping Springs, Texas, known as the "Gateway to the Hill Country," is home to a vibrant musical spirit. This central Texas city, just 25 minutes west of Austin, has inspired numerous songs and is home to several artists.

Our collection features 10 songs that mention Dripping Springs, including "Down At Drippin' Springs" by Johnny Cash and "Dripping Springs TX" by Pollo Del Mar. Four artists call Dripping Springs home, all contributing to the country music scene: Midland, Hill Country Revival, Alyssa Paige, and Logan Papp. Grammy-nominated neotraditional country band Midland formed in Dripping Springs in 2014.

Music in Dripping Springs

Songs About Dripping Springs

Down At Drippin' Springs

Johnny Cash

90%

"Down at Dripping Springs"

Dripping Springs TX

Pollo Del Mar

90%

Dripping Springs

Eric Tingstad

90%

Dripping Springs Heartbeat

Wayne Boone

90%

Dripping Springs

Cameron Kelsey

90%

Between Heaven and Dripping Springs

Sit Down, Servant!!

90%

Two-Step Down to Texas

Jack Ingram

54%

"And do shady things in Dripping Springs, honey I don't kiss and tell"

Down At Drippin’ Springs

Johnny Cash

51%

"Down at Dripping Springs down at Dripping Springs"

Hamilton Pool

Alysia Kraft

42%

"Hamilton Pool"

Sweet Daffodil

The Hill Country Devil

23%

"Out on Porter Road"

County Road 123

Aaron Watson

20%

"Down County Road 123"

Artists From Dripping Springs

Rivers & Roads in Song near Dripping Springs

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Dripping Springs.

Texas State Highway 71 2 songs Pedernales River 6 songs Blanco River 4 songs Texas Colorado River 6 songs Interstate 35 45 songs Guadalupe River 18 songs

Musical Heritage

Dripping Springs Reunion at Hurlbut Ranch RoadyGoat

In 1972, a crew of Dallas promoters rented Hurlbut Ranch outside Dripping Springs and dreamed big — sixty thousand fans a day, a three-day country blowout somebody billed as the Hillbilly Woodstock. About twenty thousand showed up, total. Willie Nelson figured out why fast: the promoters bought their ads in New York and Nashville, when the crowd they needed was right there around Austin. They lost a fortune. But look what got left in the wreckage. The lineup had mixed Nashville — Loretta Lynn, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard — with Texas writers like Willie, Waylon, and Kris Kristofferson. A few months later Willie moved home from Nashville to Austin for good. And the next summer, they reused the bones of that failed festival to throw the very first Fourth of July Picnic. Some flops plant seeds.

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First Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic, Hurlbut Ranch RoadyGoat

In 1973, Willie Nelson was forty years old and selling maybe a thousand tickets a show. His album "Shotgun Willie" had earned good reviews and thin sales. So he threw a party. On the Fourth of July, out at the Hurlbut Ranch west of Austin, about forty thousand people showed up. He'd hired the crew from the Armadillo World Headquarters to run it, and advertised the whole thing on rock radio; Leon Russell, a genuine rock star then, was the biggest draw. By the accounts after, it was a beautiful disaster — traffic backed up ten miles, water and restrooms nowhere near enough, the sound system blew, a hundred degrees and no shade. Folks straggled out at two in the morning on July fifth. And Willie Nelson had just invented his Fourth of July Picnic.

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History of Dripping Springs

Every Drip Is Building Stone RoadyGoat

Here is something worth chewing on as you pass a town literally named for dripping water. That same drip, the slow seep of mineral-loaded water over limestone, is the exact process that builds the great cave formations you have seen in pictures, the icicles of stone hanging from cave ceilings called stalactites, and the mounds rising from the floor called stalagmites. It works like a reversal of the story I could tell you about how caves form. On the way down, acidic water dissolves limestone and carries dissolved calcium with it. But the moment that water reaches open air and lets go of its carbon dioxide, the chemistry flips, and a whisper of solid mineral, calcite, gets left behind. Drip by drip, ring by ring, stone grows. And it is astonishingly patient work. A cave formation often grows less than a tenth of a millimeter a year, thinner than a sheet of paper, so a stone icicle the length of your arm can be tens of thousands of years old. So the humble drip in this town's name is one of the slowest sculptors on Earth, and it never stops working.

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The Tiny Creatures That Only Live in Springs RoadyGoat

The springs that give this town its name are not just pretty water. Across the Hill Country, spring-fed creeks and the aquifers behind them shelter some of the rarest animals in Texas, creatures so specialized they live nowhere else on Earth. Think of the Texas blind salamander, a pale, eyeless cave dweller that spends its whole life in the dark, spring-fed waters underground, sensing its world by feel and by the faint stir of the current. Or the fountain darter, a fish barely over an inch long, and the Comal Springs riffle beetle, both clinging to existence in the constant, clean flow of a single spring system. Scientists count at least a dozen federally protected species that survive only in these karst springs and the water beneath them. Why so fragile? Because a true spring runs at a steady cool temperature year round, and these animals evolved for exactly that, no summer heat, no winter chill, just the aquifer's even breath. Let the spring falter and their whole world falters with it. So when you hear Dripping Springs, remember the name points to a kind of Texas water that quietly keeps whole rare species alive.

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The Spring That Named the Town RoadyGoat

You're rolling into a town named for water you can still watch fall. In 1853 and 1854 three families from the South stopped their wagons near a creek-side ledge here in northern Hays County and stayed: Dr. Joseph Pound and his wife Sarah, John Moss and his wife Indiana, and John Wallace and his wife Malvina. Sarah and Indiana were sisters, which made this less a settlement than an extended family putting down roots on the edge of the Hill Country. By 1857 the cluster of log cabins had grown enough to need a post office, and a post office needed a name. As the story goes, Indiana Moss, called Nannie, looked at the fern-draped limestone ledges nearby where springwater seeped through the rock and dripped steadily into the creek below, and called it exactly what she saw. Those ledges still drip today, fed by the same shallow aquifer the Tonkawa once gathered around. A town gets a poetic name maybe once in a generation, and Dripping Springs earned its honestly. (Source: Handbook of Texas; City of Dripping Springs.)

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W. T. Chapman

1872

Born in Georgia, William Thomas Chapman (1835-1917) came to Texas after the Civil War during which he was wounded, incarcerated and released after taking the Oath of Allegiance to the United States. By 1872, he was in the Dripping Springs area. He married widow Martha (Box) Marshall (1835-1924) shortly after the passing of her husband, Burrell J. Marshall. Chapman raised Martha's five children and two of their own. He became the postmaster and stagecoach station operator for the area. Chapman was integral to bringing about the first public works in the settlement. In the 1870s, Chapman likely helped build the first school and was a founding trustee of Hays County School District #10. In July 1872, Chapman provided land for the First Baptist Church, which later burned. Chapman donated two acres in 1881 for the construction of Dripping Springs Academy, which doubled as a school and a church. He built a boarding house and hotel to supplement the complex. Partnering with both A.L. Davis Sr. and Jr., Chapman became a prominent merchant. In 1881, Chapman used Martha's 260 acres inherited from the Marshall estate to create twelve blocks and six streets that would be known as Dripping Springs. He named the main street after their son, Mercer. Homes and new businesses sprouted, leading Chapman to file for additional plats of land in subsequent years. Also active in Confederate veterans' affairs, Chapman helped found Camp Ben McCullouch, serving as adjutant. W.T. Chapman played an active role in the creation and subsequent success of Dripping Springs. He lies buried in Wallace Mountain Cemetery which he and A.L. Davis Sr. established. (2018)

Historical Marker →

Harris, John William

1912

John William Harris, minister and college founder, son of William David and Anne Evelyn (von Bucknow) Harris, was born on January 12, 1876, in Dripping Springs, Texas. He grew up on his family's ranch near Dilley and received his early education in area schools. In 1892 his family moved to Cotulla. As a teenager he worked as a cowboy and sheepherder. In 1894 he had an experience that resulted in his decision to devote his life to the Presbyterian Church . He attended Park Academy and Park College in Parkville, Missouri, from 1895 to 1902 and received his B.A. degree. He attended Princeton Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey, from 1902 to 1905. Harris was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1905, the year he married Eunice Evelyn White; they eventually had five children. In 1905 he was assigned a pastorate in Pond Creek, Oklahoma. The next year he was reassigned to an evangelical mission in San German, Puerto Rico. In March 1912, with one student, he founded Polytechnic Institute, which was modeled in part on the work-study program of Park College. The institute, originally housed in a farmhouse, was coeducational, ecumenical, and racially integrated, the only school of its kind in Puerto Rico. In 1916 Polytechnic graduated its first high school class. In 1919 the school was authorized to grant university-level degrees, and in 1927 the first college class, consisting of twenty-seven students, graduated. By 1927 Polytechnic had an enrollment of 400 and a 200-acre campus with ten permanent buildings. Polytechnic Institute was incorporated in 1920. It was the first coeducational school outside of the continental United States to be accredited by the Middle States Association of American Colleges and Secondary Schools, the Association of American Colleges, and the National Commission on Christian Higher Education. Harris served as president of the institute until his retirement in 1937, and he remained a member of the board of trustees until his death. On retirement he and his wife returned to their ranch, El Guajalote, in Dilley, Texas. Harris served as county committeeman to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration . He was president of the National Farm Loan Administration of Pearsall from 1940 to 1944. From 1944 to 1954 he was director of the Winter Garden National Farm Loan Association, and he directed the Survey of Southwest Texas for the Austin Presbytery in 1945. Harris was a life member of the Lions Club and the San German Masonic Lodge. He received two honorary LL.D. degrees, one from Park College in 1920 and the other from the University of Puerto Rico in 1937. He also received an honorary D.D. degree from Polytechnic in 1948. Harris died in Texas on June 14, 1956, as the result of an automobile accident. He was buried on the grounds of Polytechnic Institute in San German, Puerto Rico. In 1977 the Inter American University Press published his memoirs under the title Riding and Roping .

Tsha Handbook →

Pound, Dr. Joseph M.

1854

Pioneer settlers Dr. Joseph M. Pound and his wife Sarah Dunbiken Ward lived here and raised nine children. Two log pens made of rough-hewn cypress logs were built in 1854 with slave labor. Additions were added over time with clapboard and board-and-batten siding and square nail construction. The house featured four cut limestone fireplaces. Circuit riders stopped here and conducted Methodist worship services. The sick and wounded, rich or poor, came to this home as to a hospital. Dr. Pound, a U.S. Army private in the U.S. -Mexican War, was a confederate surgeon in the Civil War. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965

Historical Marker →

The Marshall-Chapman Home

1871

Burrell J. Marshall (1826-1872) built this residence in 1871 by adding rooms of native limestone to an existing frame structure. He used his home briefly as a post office while he was postmaster. When Marshall died in 1872, his widow Martha (1835-1924) married Wm. Thomas Chapman (1835-1917), who also became postmaster and a trustee of the Dripping Springs Academy. Marshall and Chapman family members owned the house until 1942, when John and Clara Wilson bought it. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1976

Historical Marker →

San Marcos de Neve

1808

San Marcos de Neve was a small Spanish villa (1808-1812) of approximately eighty-two persons located at the junction of the Camino Real and the San Marcos River. The Spanish government authorized the founding of San Marcos de Neve shortly after the United States's purchase of Louisiana in an effort to halt Anglo expansion, arrest contraband trade from the United States, and promote a ranching economy within Texas. The population of San Marcos de Neve consisted almost entirely of persons born in New Spain. After receiving approval and funding from Gov. Manuel Antonio Cordero y Bustamante , a number of families from Refugio in Nuevo Santander departed for the San Marcos River on the Camino Real in December 1807. Led by Spaniard Felipe Roque de Portilla , these families arrived at the future site of the villa on January 6, 1808, and quickly set about building homes and a central plaza. They were joined shortly thereafter by a small contingent of soldiers from San Antonio under Juan Ygnacio de Arrambide, who issued thirteen town lots to residents in April 1808. By the following year, a number of additional families had joined the original settlers. The people of San Marcos de Neve made their living primarily by raising livestock, with the vast majority of workers in an 1809 census listing herder or stockman as their profession. The ranchers raised cattle, horses, oxen, burros, and other forms of livestock for personal use and export. Although only one person on the 1809 census listed his profession as carpenter, it is possible that other residents of the villa had a skilled trade, but considered it secondary to their primary profession. From the founding of San Marcos de Neve to its eventual abandonment in 1812, the settlement faced a litany of problems. On June 5, 1808, just a few months after the villa's founding, the settlement was overcome by a flood that washed through its plaza and destroyed a number of citizens' homes. Although settlers made preparations to rebuild the settlement on higher ground, they apparently never followed through with the idea. This same year, an almost complete crop failure forced residents to depend on their cattle herds. In 1809 settlers at San Marcos de Neve complained that Tonkawa attacks on the villa were so frequent that it was almost impossible to cultivate their land. On July 27, 1812, a combined group of Comanche and Tawakoni Indians invaded San Marcos de Neve and ran off with some 205 horses. The small detachment of soldiers in the villa was powerless to stop the attack and unable to pursue the raiding Indians . Making matters worse for the civilians at San Marcos, a number of Comanches reported to Spanish officials in San Antonio that the attack was only a small part of a larger, multi-tribe effort to make war on the Spanish. Fearing that foreigners had been inciting natives, then Texas Gov. Manuel María de Salcedo recalled the soldiers of San Marcos in order to defend San Antonio. With no one left to guard against Indian raids, the people of San Marcos abandoned their homes, never to return. It appears that most of the settlers returned to Mexico. Shortly after the abandonment of San Marcos, the commandant general of the Eastern Internal Provinces, Joaquín de Arredondo, ordered a massive fort built in the area to defend Spanish settlements against Indian raids. Workers quickly abandoned the project, however, because Comanches attacked them every time they went to chop wood for its construction. In 1995 an archeological team under Nancy Kenmotsu located the remains of San Marcos de Neve in Hays County. Kenmotsu's inspection-and subsequent investigations in 1997 and 1998-found that although the villa contained a plaza, most of San Marcos's residents lived outside the town's center. Archeologists speculate that this could either be due to the villa's ranching focus or to residents rebuilding their homes on higher ground after the 1808 flood. In any case, the settlement pattern made it more d

Tsha Handbook → · 9.5 mi away

Spring Lake Site

-9000

The Spring Lake Site is so named because it is one of several areas of archeological debris under the lake of the protected property known as Aquarena Springs . Other sites exist all around the lake, which is located in San Marcos in southeastern Hays County. Spring Lake (at 29°53' N, 97°56' W) is produced from San Marcos Springs , which has an average daily flow of 150 to 300 million gallons a day, half a dozen other large outlets from the giant Edwards Aquifer, and a great many small seepages. These combine to form the San Marcos River. The lake lies at the foot of the Edwards Plateau , some thirty miles south of Austin and fifty miles north of San Antonio. Between 9,000 and 10,000 B.C. the Clovis people took up residence at the springs; they were apparently the first people to live there and appear to have located by the springs because of the relative warmth of the water, which is a constant 72° regardless of season. Also, springside trees, grasses and water plants are constantly succulent and could be expected to attract browsers and grazers to the springs as well as to the first few miles of the San Marcos River. Whether the Clovis lived at the site recurrently or permanently, we do not know. The residue of their activity is abundant, especially in flaked stone tools and chipping debris. Huge mammoths, mastodons, and bison were killed away from the main camp with only selected parts, primarily the teeth, brought home. Those fragments had been broken away from the jaw bones with a hammerstone; however, the teeth include interior pulp and dentine. Thus, poor preservation cannot be blamed for the absence of larger bones. By Archaic times bison leg bones and whole teeth appeared in the camp debris. Excavations in Spring Lake were directed by Joel L. Shiner of Southern Methodist University beginning in 1978. The work was sporadic since no significant support was received except from private sources. The Aquarena Corporation, tuition from private underwater classes, and grants from business firms kept the research alive. On the average, small crews were in the water about two days per month. In the 1990s anthropology graduate student Paul Takac continued the archeological research begun by Shiner. A cultural sequence has been blocked out for 12,000 years of occupation. Following the Clovis people, there was a group that made and discarded large numbers of as yet unnamed long slender lanceolate spear points. These are presumed to date from 7,000 to 9,000 B.C. The two early occupations are followed by the typical Archaic Phases and their distinctive points. About A.D. 1000 the bow and arrow and crude pottery appear. In the 1700s numerous Spanish expeditions passed by but made no permanent settlements. In the 1840s Anglos began settlement. The collecting from the site has been done by scuba divers, because in the late nineteenth century the early Texans dammed the river immediately below the springs and inundated the ancient villages with ten to twelve feet of water. Because of the water, preservation has been excellent. Teeth, wood, and bones already "walked" into the mud at the spring banks have been protected by lake deposition from modern collectors, industry, and roads. In 1994 Aquarena Springs Resort, including Spring Lake, was formally purchased by Southwest Texas State University. The school's Anthropology Department, headed by James Garber, played an increased role in the study of the site and its artifacts. In 1995 the resort featured a new natural history exhibit containing artifacts from the 1978 dig.

Tsha Handbook → · 9.5 mi away

Things to Do in Dripping Springs

food 21.9 mi away

Franklin Barbecue

Legendary Austin BBQ with 2-3 hour waits. Obama waited in line here.

nature 10.8 mi away

Hamilton Pool Preserve

A natural swimming hole under a 50-foot waterfall in a collapsed grotto.

quirky 10.8 mi away

Hamilton Pool

A domed grotto of limestone where an underground river collapsed thousands of years ago and left a fifty-foot waterfall spilling into a jade-green pool.…

quirky 11.0 mi away

Jacob's Well

An artesian spring flows up through a vertical cave in Wimberley so clear and so deep that from the surface you can see straight down a hundred feet into the…

nature 12.8 mi away

Pedernales Falls

The Pedernales River drops over a staircase of tilted Cretaceous limestone here -- the rock layers dip about three degrees to the southeast and the river…

historical 17.9 mi away

The Broken Spoke

James White built the Broken Spoke out of cinder blocks on South Lamar in 1964 and stubbornly refused to let Austin grow up around it. Willie Nelson Bob Wills…

quirky 17.9 mi away

Willie Nelson's Luck Ranch

Willie built his own ghost town on his Spicewood ranch for the 1986 movie Red Headed Stranger -- a whole frontier village with a saloon chapel livery and…

historical 18.1 mi away

Devil's Backbone Tavern

Perched on the haunted limestone ridge that gives the road its name, Devil's Backbone Tavern is one of the great Texas Hill Country dive bars. The first stone…

day trip

Day Trip to Dripping Springs 🧗🏻 (FULL EPISODE) S4 E5

Featured on The Daytripper — a full-episode local travel guide.

Sports in Dripping Springs

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 6A · Volleyball · 2022

Dripping Springs — 2022 UIL 6A Volleyball State Champions

Most recent: 2022 6A

Dripping Springs High School, located in the scenic Texas Hill Country, stands as a Class 6A powerhouse in volleyball. The Tigers have established a strong presence in UIL competition, bringing pride and excitement to their community. Their consistent performance reflects the dedication found within the program and among its student-athletes.

The school's most notable achievement in volleyball came with their state championship title in 2022, competing at the 6A level. This significant victory highlights a peak moment for Dripping Springs athletics, showcasing the talent nurtured in this vibrant Texas town.

State titles

2022

Most recent

2022

Class

The moment

The Dripping Springs Tigers secured a state championship in volleyball in 2022, competing in Class 6A.

Sources: Wikipedia · UIL State Championship Archives · SI High School (ScoreBook Live)

Everything Near Dripping Springs

346 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

Every Drip Is Building Stone
Here is something worth chewing on as you pass a town literally named for dripping water. That same drip, the slow seep of mineral-loaded water over limestone, is the exact process that builds the great cave formations…
The Tiny Creatures That Only Live in Springs
The springs that give this town its name are not just pretty water. Across the Hill Country, spring-fed creeks and the aquifers behind them shelter some of the rarest animals in Texas, creatures so specialized they live…
The Cave That Fell In and Became a Swimming Hole
About a dozen miles southwest of downtown, off Hamilton Pool Road, is one of the most photographed natural spots in Texas, and it exists because the ceiling caved in. Hamilton Pool was once an underground river running…
The Spring That Named the Town
You're rolling into a town named for water you can still watch fall. In 1853 and 1854 three families from the South stopped their wagons near a creek-side ledge here in northern Hays County and stayed: Dr. Joseph Pound…
The Failed Festival That Launched Willie's Picnic
On a ranch outside town, over three days in March 1972, country music quietly changed. The Dripping Springs Reunion was supposed to be the Hillbilly Woodstock: organizers booked Nashville royalty like Loretta Lynn, Tex…
Named by a Woman Who Loved the Drip
This town wears its name honestly. Back in eighteen fifty-three and eighteen fifty-four, three families rolling west out of Mississippi and Kentucky, the Pounds, the Mosses, and the Wallaces, stopped their wagons in…
Where the Dripping Water Actually Comes From
So what makes a spring drip out of a limestone ledge in the first place? Here in the Hill Country, the ground under your wheels is soft, dissolvable rock, and geologists call this landscape karst, a word borrowed from a…
Why the Water Runs So Clear
People look at a Hill Country spring, so clear you can count the pebbles on the bottom, and figure it must have come from somewhere clean and untouched. Here is the fuller truth. That water is clear largely because the…
The Gateway on the Old Fredericksburg Road
There is a reason Dripping Springs calls itself the Gateway to the Hill Country, and it goes back to the way people and freight actually moved across this land in the eighteen hundreds. The settlement sat right on the…
Dripping Springs, TX
Dripping Springs has always walked a line between small-town charm and big-city proximity, but lately, that line feels more like a tightrope. You can see it in the traffic on 290, thicker every year, and hear it in the…
Dripping Springs Reunion at Hurlbut Ranch
In 1972, a crew of Dallas promoters rented Hurlbut Ranch outside Dripping Springs and dreamed big — sixty thousand fans a day, a three-day country blowout somebody billed as the Hillbilly Woodstock. About twenty…
First Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic, Hurlbut Ranch
In 1973, Willie Nelson was forty years old and selling maybe a thousand tickets a show. His album "Shotgun Willie" had earned good reviews and thin sales. So he threw a party. On the Fourth of July, out at the Hurlbut…

Show all 200 nearby places

The First Town in Texas to Protect the Dark
Look up here on a clear night and you'll see more stars than almost anywhere else this close to a big city, and that's by deliberate design. As Austin's glow crept westward, Dripping Springs residents realized the thing…
Gateway to the Hill Country, Capital of Texas Weddings
Driving west on US Highway 290, this is the spot where the suburbs of Austin finally let go and the limestone hills take over, which is why Dripping Springs calls itself the Gateway to the Hill Country. The label is…
How Three Pioneer Families' Town Became Booze Country
The town that three Mississippi families settled in the 1850s is, a century and a half later, one of the densest clusters of craft distilleries, breweries, and wineries in Texas. Proximity is the reason: close enough to…
Footsteps in the Parlor of the Oldest House in Town
The oldest house in Dripping Springs sits at the Dr. Pound Historical Farmstead off Founders Park Road, built in 1854 by Dr. Joseph Pound, one of the town's founders and its frontier physician. For generations the Pound…
The Main Street That Time Mostly Left Alone
Walk down Mercer Street and you're standing in the original commercial heart of Dripping Springs, a stretch of storefronts built mostly between 1870 and 1940 that has survived where dozens of small Texas downtowns…
Mt. Gainer · Historical Marker
You're driving past the former site of Mt. Gainer, a community that grew up around a prominent hill. It all started in 1858 when Joseph P. Gainer, known as Grandpa Gainer, settled 320 acres right around here. The…
First Baptist Church of Dripping Springs · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the First Baptist Church of Dripping Springs. It all started back in June of 1872, when Reverend G. G. Rucker and twelve charter members organized this congregation. Just a year later,…
Scratch Pastries on the Way Into the Hills · 0.2 mi
If you want to eat where locals actually eat rather than a polished tasting room, Rolling in Thyme and Dough at 333 US Highway 290 West is the longtime answer. It's a from-scratch bakery and cafe, the kind of place…
Dripping Springs Academy · 0.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Dripping Springs Academy, a school that began its life in 1881 thanks to W.M. Jordan, a prominent Baptist preacher. This stone building was handed over to the Pedernales Baptist…
W. T. Chapman · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker
Born in Georgia, William Thomas Chapman (1835-1917) came to Texas after the Civil War during which he was wounded, incarcerated and released after taking the Oath of Allegiance to the United States. By 1872, he was in…
The Marshall-Chapman Home · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker
Burrell J. Marshall (1826-1872) built this residence in 1871 by adding rooms of native limestone to an existing frame structure. He used his home briefly as a post office while he was postmaster. When Marshall died in…
Harris, John William · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
John William Harris, minister and college founder, son of William David and Anne Evelyn (von Bucknow) Harris, was born on January 12, 1876, in Dripping Springs, Texas. He grew up on his family's ranch near Dilley and…
Pound, Dr. Joseph M. · 0.7 mi · Historical Marker
Pioneer settlers Dr. Joseph M. Pound and his wife Sarah Dunbiken Ward lived here and raised nine children. Two log pens made of rough-hewn cypress logs were built in 1854 with slave labor. Additions were added over time…
He bartered for medical care · 0.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Dripping Springs, and right here is the story of Dr. Joseph Pound. He was a veteran of the Mexican-American War, but he really made his mark here in Hays County. After medical school, he moved to…
Dripping Springs United Methodist Church · 1.1 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Dripping Springs, where Methodists first gathered for worship way back in 1854. Imagine them meeting in the one-room log home of Dr. J. W. Pound! Two famous circuit preachers, Andrew J. Potter and…
Phillips Cemetery · 1.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Phillips Cemetery, a final resting place that started as a community project. Back in 1880, John and Nancy Phillips donated land for the Methodist Episcopal Church. A church rose, and right next to…
Why Texas Vodka Goes Through the Still Twenty Times · 2.2 mi
Out on Bell Springs Road, Dripping Springs Distilling has spent two decades turning Midwestern corn into award-winning vodka, and the how is a small lesson in chemistry. Brothers Gary and Kevin Kelleher launched…
Tillie's at Camp Lucy · 2.2 mi · Things to Do
Upscale Hill Country dining at the Camp Lucy resort, 3509 Creek Road. Said to serve the best breakfast in the Hill Country — open to the public, not just…
The Wedding Capital of Texas · 2.7 mi
You might not see it from the main road, but you're driving through the official 'Wedding Capital of Texas.' How did a small Hill Country town earn that title? It started in the 1990s, when the area's scenic beauty…
Engineering the Dark · 2.7 mi
As night falls in Dripping Springs, you might notice the stars seem brighter here. That’s not an accident; it’s a deliberate act of science and civic engineering. In 2014, Dripping Springs became the first city in Texas…
The House That Built a Town · 2.7 mi
Right in the heart of town, on Mercer Street, sits a simple log-and-lumber house that is essentially the birthplace of Dripping Springs. Built by Dr. Joseph Pound in 1854, this wasn't just a family home. In a frontier…
Driftwood, TX · 3.0 mi
Driftwood, a small community in northern Hays County, Texas, has a history that dates back to the arrival of the earliest settlers around 1850. However, it wasn't until the 1880s that the community truly established…
Flowers Every Mother's Day · 3.4 mi
This stretch of U S Highway Two Ninety is the John Allen McCarty Memorial Highway, honoring a Henly rancher who survived the Bataan Death March. McCarty was a member of the U S Army during World War Two. He was…
Burns Sons' Gravesite · 3.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Burns Sons' Gravesite, established in 1879. This site was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2008.
Salt Lick BBQ · 5.4 mi · Things to Do
BYOB BBQ legend in Driftwood. Outdoor pit cooking since 1967. Cash only.
Lieutenant Crabb and the Rain on Highway Two Ninety · 5.6 mi
The Lieutenant Clay Crabb Memorial Highway follows U.S. Highway Two Ninety from Circle Drive in Travis County to Hays Country Acres Road in Hays County. Clay Douglas Crabb spent nearly four years with the San Angelo…
Driftwood Church · 5.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're cruising past Driftwood, Texas, where a little church has been a beacon for over a century. Early Methodist services kicked off in the area back in the 1850s, but the congregation built this very sanctuary in…
Driftwood Cemetery · 5.7 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Driftwood, and right here is Driftwood Cemetery. This resting place got its start in 1884, when the local Methodist church built a sanctuary on land donated by David and Mattie Dorrah. The…
The Salt Lick: Open-Pit Hill Country Barbecue in Driftwood Since 1967 · 6.0 mi
The Salt Lick BBQ in Driftwood, Texas, is one of the most famous barbecue pits in the Hill Country. It opened in 1967, founded by Thurman Roberts and his wife Hisako Roberts, on land the Roberts family had settled…
Camp Ben McCulloch No. 946 · 6.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Driftwood, Texas, where a piece of Civil War legacy lives on. Back in 1896, Confederate veterans and their families gathered near here at Martin Spring to form the Camp Ben McCulloch Chapter of…
The Alamo Commander's Land Near Driftwood · 6.3 mi
The William B. Travis Heritage Trail follows Ranch to Market Road One Fifty in Hays County, between Ranch to Market Road Twelve and Thirty Two Thirty Seven. When lawmakers named it in twenty nineteen, they wrote that it…
Rogers, Joseph B. · 8.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the home of Joseph B. Rogers, a Texas Ranger who fought in the Civil War. His family came to Texas way back in 1831. After the war, in 1869, Rogers bought this land and built this sturdy limestone…
Willie and the Armadillo · 8.7 mi
The Austin you know today—the 'Live Music Capital of the World'—owes a huge debt to a failed concert hall and a country singer tired of Nashville. In the early 1970s, Willie Nelson moved to Austin, looking for a place…
The Bats of Congress Avenue · 8.7 mi
If you find yourself near the Congress Avenue Bridge at dusk, you're in for one of the most incredible wildlife shows in North America. This is an ecology story born from an engineering project. In 1980, the bridge was…
The Terror of the Moonlight Towers · 8.7 mi
In 1884 and 1885, a deep fear gripped Austin. A mysterious figure, later dubbed the 'Servant Girl Annihilator,' committed a series of horrific axe murders, attacking his victims—mostly women—in their homes in the dead…
The Man Who Kept Austin Weird · 8.7 mi
For decades, if you spent any time in downtown Austin, you would have seen Leslie Cochran. A formerly homeless man, Leslie became the city's most famous and beloved local character, known for his outrageous…
The Hurricane from Antone's · 8.7 mi
Before he was a global icon, Stevie Ray Vaughan was an Austin guitar slinger. He cut his teeth in the city's smoky blues clubs, most notably Antone's, the 'Home of the Blues.' It was here, on stages across the city,…
Ostin, TX · 8.7 mi
Austin sits right on the Balcones Escarpment, a dramatic fault line that marks the edge of the Texas Hill Country. To the west, you've got rolling limestone hills carved by the Colorado River and its tributaries,…
The Cannon Shot that Saved the Capital · 8.7 mi
Austin almost wasn't the capital of Texas. In 1842, President Sam Houston, fearing attacks on the frontier city, ordered the government archives hauled off to Washington-on-the-Brazos, where his government was then…
The Day the Tower Bled · 8.7 mi
On August 1, 1966, the iconic tower at the center of the University of Texas campus became a scene of unimaginable horror. Charles Whitman, an engineering student and ex-Marine, ascended to the tower's observation deck…
Anderson Mill, TX · 8.7 mi
Anderson Mill boasts a rich natural environment with Lake Creek and its tributaries running through the neighborhood. The area features nearly six miles of hike and bike trails, providing residents with an opportunity…
San Marcos de Neve · 9.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
San Marcos de Neve was a small Spanish villa (1808-1812) of approximately eighty-two persons located at the junction of the Camino Real and the San Marcos River. The Spanish government authorized the founding of San…
Spring Lake Site · 9.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
The Spring Lake Site is so named because it is one of several areas of archeological debris under the lake of the protected property known as Aquarena Springs . Other sites exist all around the lake, which is located in…
Cooper, Dillard · 9.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Hays County, or maybe Colorado County, and you're passing the land of Dillard Cooper. He came to Texas in January of 1836, part of the Red Rovers, heading straight for the fight. Cooper was with…
Fourth Texas Infantry · 9.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through what was once Hays County, Texas, where in 1861, a camp of instruction on the San Marcos River became the birthplace of the Fourth Texas Infantry. These Texans, originally planning to enlist for…
Friday Mountain Ranch · 9.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Hays County, just southwest of Austin, and you're passing near a place called Friday Mountain Ranch. This wasn't just any old ranch. Back in 1852, it was the site of the Johnson Institute, a…
Goat Ranching · 9.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Texas, the undisputed king of mohair production in the United States. But did you know it all started with a few goats brought here back in the late 1850s? William Walton Haupt, right here in Hays…
Stringtown, TX (Hays County) · 9.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
Stringtown, in southern Hays County, was one of the earliest Anglo-American settlements in the county. The community got its name from the approximately four-mile-long string of houses that were built facing the old San…
Hamilton Pool Preserve · 10.8 mi · Things to Do
A natural swimming hole under a 50-foot waterfall in a collapsed grotto.
Hamilton Pool · 10.8 mi · Things to Do
A domed grotto of limestone where an underground river collapsed thousands of years ago and left a fifty-foot waterfall spilling into a jade-green pool.…
Hamilton Pool Preserve · 10.8 mi · Natural Landmark
Thousands of years ago, the ceiling of an underground river collapsed here, and what it left behind is one of the most surreal swimming holes in the United States. Hamilton Pool is a natural grotto carved into limestone…
Jacob's Well · 10.8 mi · Natural Landmark
This spring has never stopped flowing. Jacob's Well is a perpetual artesian spring that rises from the Trinity Aquifer through a vertical shaft in the creek bed, twelve feet across and dropping straight down into…
Jacob's Well · 10.9 mi · Things to Do
An artesian spring that looks like a bottomless blue hole. One of Texas' most dangerous diving spots.
Jacob's Well · 11.0 mi · Things to Do
An artesian spring flows up through a vertical cave in Wimberley so clear and so deep that from the surface you can see straight down a hundred feet into the…
Bee Cave, TX · 11.0 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving west of Austin, approaching Bee Cave. This spot got its name from a massive cave right here on the creeks, absolutely buzzing with Mexican honeybees! <break time="400ms"/> In the early 1850s, Dietrich…
The Dance That Gives Directions · 11.1 mi
The town of Bee Cave is named for wild honeybees, and here is one of the strangest things those little insects can do. When a honeybee finds a good patch of flowers, she flies home and dances. Not a figure of speech, an…
The Honeybee Is an Immigrant · 11.1 mi
Here is a fact that surprises almost everyone, and it fits a town named Bee Cave perfectly. The honeybee, the one that makes the honey and lives in those big social hives, is not originally from North America. It was…
The Cave That Named the Town · 11.1 mi
You are rolling through Bee Cave, and yes, the name is exactly what it sounds like. Back in the early eighteen fifties, a settler named Dietrich Bohls moved his family out from Austin to the spot where Barton Creek…
Honey Is Basically Reduced Nectar · 11.1 mi
The name Bee Cave comes from wild honeybees, so let us talk about the honey itself, because the way bees make it is stranger than most people think. A forager drinks nectar into a special stomach, not the one she…
Texas Has Bees You Never See · 11.1 mi
The town is named Bee Cave for the social honeybees that once swarmed a real cave here, but here is the twist most Texans miss. The honeybee is the loud, famous one, yet Texas is home to more than eight hundred kinds of…
One in Three Bites · 11.1 mi
You are passing through a town named for bees, so here is a number worth chewing on. The United States Department of Agriculture puts it plainly. About one out of every three bites of food you eat depends on animal…
The Flood of 2015 · 11.3 mi
Cypress Creek is the beautiful, life-giving artery of Woodcreek, but on Memorial Day weekend in 2015 the whole watershed showed what it can do. A weather system stalled over the Hill Country and dropped more than a foot…
The Fragile Creek · 11.3 mi
The beautiful Cypress Creek flowing through Woodcreek isn't just rainwater runoff; it's the product of a fascinating and fragile underground plumbing system. The creek is fed by springs that emerge from the Trinity…
From Ranch to Resort: The Double J · 11.3 mi
The golf course is the reason Woodcreek exists at all. This stretch of Hill Country a mile north of Wimberley was ranch country until developers started carving a resort community out of it in the 1970s, and the anchor…
Woodcreek, TX · 11.3 mi
Nestled in the heart of Hays County, Texas, Woodcreek is a city that boasts a total area of 1.1 square miles, all of which is land. The city is located just 2 miles north of Wimberley, 34 miles southwest of Austin, and…
Jacob's Well, The Heart of the Creek · 11.4 mi
Just northwest of town lies Jacob's Well, one of the most significant natural landmarks in Texas. It’s the headspring of Cypress Creek, a deep artesian spring that looks like a dark, mysterious hole in the creekbed. For…
The Night the Blanco River Roared · 11.4 mi
If you look at the Blanco River near Wimberley, you might see a peaceful, shallow stream. But on Memorial Day weekend in 2015, it became an unstoppable force of destruction. Meteorologists call the event a 'rain bomb.'…
Jacob's Well: A Gauge for the Trinity Aquifer · 11.4 mi
Wimberley’s famous Jacob's Well isn't just a swimming hole; it's a natural scientific instrument. It’s the largest spring discharging from the Middle Trinity Aquifer in the area. Think of the aquifer as a massive…
Saving the Blue Hole · 11.4 mi
One of Wimberley's most beloved spots is the Blue Hole, a stunning swimming area on Cypress Creek shaded by towering cypress trees. For most of the twentieth century it was privately owned, open to swimmers on a…
The Lions Club Market Days · 11.4 mi
On the first Saturday of almost every month, Wimberley transforms. Thousands of people flock to a sprawling field for Wimberley Market Days, one of the oldest and largest outdoor markets in the Texas Hill Country. What…
Westcave Preserve · 11.5 mi · Things to Do
A collapsed grotto two miles down the road from Hamilton Pool with a forty-foot travertine waterfall and a sealed-off ecosystem at the bottom. The temperature…
Jacobs Well Cemetery · 11.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Jacobs Well Cemetery, a resting place that's been here since 1883. It served the Jacob's Well community, named for a nearby natural spring. Many of the first settlers here came all the way from South…
Lake Travis High School (Baker Mayfield) · 11.8 mi
Lake Travis High School (3324 Ranch Road 620 S., Austin, TX), home of the Cavaliers, is where Austin-born Baker Mayfield won. He led Lake Travis to a 25-2 record over two seasons and the 2011 Texas state championship.…
The West Pole · 11.8 mi
Bee Cave has a pole you can't see, and that's the whole joke. There's no North Pole up here and no South Pole either — what Bee Cave has is the West Pole, and in May of 2007 the Texas Legislature made it official,…
The Ghost of The Backyard · 11.8 mi
As you drive along Highway 71, you're passing the home of a legendary music venue: The Backyard. It opened in 1993 right where 71 meets Ranch Road 620, a sprawling outdoor amphitheater tucked among the oak trees, and…
The Endangered Songbird's Canyon · 11.8 mi
The rugged hills around Bee Cave aren't just scenic — they're nesting ground for a bird that breeds nowhere else on Earth but Central Texas. This is the story of the Golden-cheeked Warbler, the only bird species whose…
Bee Cave, TX · 11.8 mi
Bee Cave, as many know, owes its name to a legend about a honey-filled cave. But more recently, a different kind of buzz has been building—one around the rapid development changing the very character of the place. The…
2016 UIL 6A Division 1 Football State Champions · 12.0 mi
Lake Travis High School (Austin, TX): Most recent: 41-13 over Conroe The Woodlands · 2016 6A Division 1 final.
The Cave That Buzzed · 12.0 mi
Bee Cave earned its name the honest way. In the early eighteen fifties, Dietrich Bohls settled near the meeting of Barton Creek and Little Barton Creek, in a country of cedar and pale limestone bluffs. Tucked into that…
The Water Under the Rock · 12.0 mi
The cave that named Bee Cave was no accident of geology. The town sits on the eastern edge of the Edwards Plateau, where the land drops away at the Balcones Escarpment. The bedrock is Cretaceous limestone, laid down as…
Baker Mayfield at Lake Travis High School · 12.0 mi · Sports Alumni
Baker Mayfield quarterbacked the Lake Travis Cavaliers to the final title in the greatest run in Texas high school football history. As a junior in 2011 he threw for three thousand seven hundred eighty-eight yards and…
Texas HS Baseball Playoff Leaders 2026: Lake Travis (Austin) · 12.0 mi
Lake Travis (Austin) put 2 players on the statewide leaderboards of the 2026 Texas high school baseball playoffs. Cooper Webb had the 6th-fewest hits allowed per inning in the state, and 41 strikeouts (10th in the…
From Twenty Souls to Nine Thousand · 12.0 mi
For most of its life, Bee Cave was tiny. In the mid eighteen eighties the community had a steam gristmill, a cotton gin, a general store, a church, a school, and just twenty residents. The post office closed in nineteen…
The Ranch That Became the Galleria · 12.0 mi
The heart of modern Bee Cave sits on land that was once a ranch. In nineteen seventy nine, Robert Baldwin bought roughly one hundred twenty five acres here, long before the highway filled with traffic. Decades later…
Ragsdale, Julia Ann · 12.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Julia Ann Ragsdale house, a testament to a woman's resilience. Julia Ann, a widow and former teacher, brought her family to Texas during the Civil War. After her daughter Mary died young, Julia…
The Village Behind the Gate · 12.5 mi
As you pass through the entrance to The Hills, you're not just entering a subdivision — you're entering a legally recognized town. The Hills is one of the very few gated communities in Texas that is also its own…
The Warbler and the Boom · 12.5 mi
The beautiful landscape you're driving through is at the center of a major ecological story. This part of the Texas Hill Country is the only place on Earth where the endangered golden-cheeked warbler builds its nests,…
When Pro Tennis Made Lakeway Its Headquarters · 12.5 mi
For two decades, this quiet resort town was a capital of professional tennis. World Championship Tennis, one of the main organizing bodies of the men's pro tour, was headquartered at the Lakeway World of Tennis from…
The Course That Built a Town · 12.5 mi
The very existence of The Hills, Texas, can be traced back to a single patch of green: the golf course at The Hills Country Club. But this wasn't just any course. Developers brought in Jack Nicklaus, and when it opened…
Wimberley Glassworks · 12.6 mi · Things to Do
Watch master glassblowers create art in real time. Beautiful Hill Country setting.
Pedernales Falls · 12.8 mi · Things to Do
The Pedernales River drops over a staircase of tilted Cretaceous limestone here -- the rock layers dip about three degrees to the southeast and the river…
The Lakeway Neighborhood Where Homes Come With Runways · 12.8 mi
In one Lakeway neighborhood, some driveways lead to hangars instead of garages. Lakeway Airpark, identifier 3R9, sits just south of Lake Travis on land that once held a private ranch airstrip. That earliest dirt strip…
Blue Hole Regional Park · 12.9 mi · Things to Do
A crystal-clear swimming hole fed by Cypress Creek in Wimberley.
Lakeway, TX · 12.9 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving past Lakeway, a community born from dreams of a lakeside resort. It all started in 1962 when Houston investors bought a 2,700-acre ranch. They envisioned a luxury inn and residential community, naming it…
Levi Rock Shelter · 13.2 mi · Scraped Hmdb
Imagine standing where people stood 10000 years ago! Right here, near Lick Creek, is the Levi Rock Shelter, an archeological site that gives us a peek into the lives of some of the earliest Texans. Discovered in the…
The Night the Blanco Rose Forty Feet · 13.3 mi
On the night of May 23 into May 24, 2015, Memorial Day weekend, the Blanco River turned into one of the deadliest flash floods in Texas history. Ten to thirteen inches of rain fell upstream in a few hours, and the river…
The Well That Swallows Divers · 13.3 mi
Just northwest of town, in the bed of Cypress Creek, a perfectly round 12-foot mouth opens straight down into the earth. That's Jacob's Well, and from the surface it looks like an inviting blue swimming hole. Below it…
Three Owners Before It Got the Right Name · 13.3 mi
The town you're rolling into spent decades answering to other people's names before it became Wimberley. In 1848, the year Hays County was organized, San Jacinto veteran William Carvin Winters built a grist mill and…
The Swimming Hole the Town Bought to Save · 13.3 mi
Generations of Wimberley kids learned to swim in the cold green water of Blue Hole, where Cypress Creek pools up under a canopy of old-growth bald cypress trees. The Dobie family opened it to the public back in the…
The Mandolin Prodigy Who Grew Up at the Friday Jam · 13.3 mi
Some of the bluegrass that made Sarah Jarosz famous was learned right here in Wimberley. Raised in town, she picked up the mandolin at age 10 and sharpened her playing at the weekly Friday night bluegrass jams that…
The Most Haunted Drive in the Hill Country · 13.3 mi
Head west out of Wimberley on Ranch Road 12 toward Blanco and you climb onto the Devil's Backbone, a narrow limestone ridge that locals swear is the most haunted stretch of road in Texas. The Spanish reportedly named…
Wimberley, TX · 13.3 mi
Wimberley isn't just a pretty postcard of Cypress Creek winding through the Hill Country; it’s a place shaped by resilience. You can’t talk about Wimberley without acknowledging the 2015 Memorial Day flood. The Blanco…
Devil's Backbone Tavern · 13.3 mi
Out on Ranch Road 32, in Comal County near a wide spot called Fischer — not quite Wimberley, whatever the map tells you — a honky-tonk called the Devil's Backbone Tavern has stood since 1932, back in the last days of…
How an Artesian Spring Can Run Dry · 13.3 mi
Jacob's Well isn't just a pretty swimming hole, it's a window into the plumbing under the Hill Country. The water comes up under its own pressure from the Trinity Aquifer, an artesian spring that needs no pump. In 1924…
Live Pigs to 490 Booths: Market Days and the Arts Colony · 13.3 mi
On the first Saturday of every warm month, the oak-shaded grounds at Lions Field fill with shoppers for Wimberley Market Days, one of the largest outdoor markets in Texas. It started small and strange. When the Chamber…
A Theatre Built From a Daughter's Memory · 13.3 mi
The amphitheater and gardens at 1101 FM 2325 carry the name of a teenager who never got to grow up. Emily Ann Rolling, born in 1980, moved to Wimberley with her family in 1993 and threw herself into the drama program at…
Wimberley Mills · 13.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Wimberley Mills, a business that served this valley for over 85 years! It all started in 1848 when William Winters, a San Jacinto veteran, built a grist and sawmill right here on Cypress…
Winters-Wimberley House · 13.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Winters-Wimberley House, a landmark that grew with this town. William Winters arrived in Texas in 1834, fought at San Jacinto, and eventually settled here. He built a mill on Cypress…
Wimberley-Hughes House · 13.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Wimberley-Hughes House, built around 1877 by Zach Wimberley. It was painted pink with red trim, a unique choice for the time. The house is connected to the Wimberley mill, which provided lumber…
Indian Mott Skirmish · 13.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Indian Mott Skirmish. After peace talks ended in the disastrous “Council House Fight” in March 1840 in San Antonio, the Comanche increased raids. Returning from a bold attack on…
C. W. Burdett · 13.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past C. W. Burdett. Clarence W. Burdett (1913-2001) helped build his family’s store in Wimberley in 1932, supervising the construction of the building using native and colored stone brought in from…
The Century-Old Wimberley Cemetery · 13.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the oldest cemetery in Wimberley. This land was first patented way back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1847</say-as> by Amasa Turner. Early settlers built a log cabin right here, using it…
Peal-Pleasant Valley Cemetery · 13.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Peal-Pleasant Valley Cemetery, the final resting place for pioneering families in Hays County. This rural cemetery, sometimes known as Valley Ford, holds twenty-three known graves and is the last…
Oak Hill · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Oak Hill, a community with a name that's changed more times than a chameleon! It started as Live Oak Springs in 1856, then became Shiloh. Later, it was known by school names like Live Oak and…
Pyland, Sidney J. · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the historic Wimberley Town Square, where about 1880, a young Sidney Pyland arrived with his family from Tennessee. Fast forward to 1895; at 20 years old, Sidney Pyland opens his blacksmith shop…
Saunders, John Henry · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the former home of John Henry Saunders, a man who wore many hats here in Hays County. Born in Virginia in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1850</say-as>, Saunders served in the Confederate…
Dobie, John R. · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the John R. Dobie house, built around 1892 for the Cock family. The Dobies, John and Martha, bought it in 1899. John R. Dobie, a Scottish immigrant, farmed, ranched, and even served as a Hays County…
Shady Hollow, TX · 13.5 mi
Welcome to Park on Doe Run in Shady Hollow, Texas. This park was created as part of an agreement between Austin Savings and Loan Owners and the Shady Hollow Homeowners Corporation in 1984, to provide recreational…
A Restaurant Rebuilt Board by Board · 13.5 mi
The building that houses Longleaf Craft Kitchen + Bar at 314 Wimberley Square has eaten more years than most of the town. It started out in San Marcos and was facing demolition there when it was saved in an unusual way:…
Miss Lillie Dobie's House · 13.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Miss Lillie Dobie's House, a landmark that tells a story of resilience and community. Lillie and her husband John bought this land back in 1911, running a dairy and raising a family.…
James C. Lane House · 13.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the James C. Lane House, built in 1935 by a local Wimberley builder. It's known for its unique 'giraffe rock' exterior, a mix of native rock, poured concrete, and decorative fossils. His wife,…
The Dam That Made the Lake · 13.6 mi
As you look out over Lake Travis, remember that none of this would be here without a monumental feat of engineering just down the river: Mansfield Dam. Built between 1937 and 1942, it was a project of the Lower Colorado…
How a Houston Hotel Company Turned a Ranch Into Lakeway · 13.6 mi
Lakeway began as a business plan on the shore of Lake Travis. In early 1962 three Houston men tied to the Gulfmont Hotel Company, G. Flint Sawtelle, John H. Crooker Jr., and Lee Blocker, took a sixty-day option on a…
The Jet-Set Resort in the Hills · 13.6 mi
The large resort you might see perched on the hill above the lake is where the Lakeway story began. When it opened in 1963 as the Lakeway Inn, it was the heart of a bold new concept in Texas leisure. The developers…
Game, Set, Lakeway · 13.6 mi
In the 1970s, before Lakeway was a major residential suburb, it was a map dot for tennis fans around the world. That's thanks to the World of Tennis complex, which opened here in 1973 — a hundred-acre joint venture by…
Lakeway, TX · 13.6 mi
Nestled in the heart of Texas, the city of Lakeway is defined by its geography. It is situated next to the expansive Lake Travis, with Hurst Creek running directly through the city and emptying into the lake to the…
Hays, John Coffee · 13.7 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Hays County, Texas, named for a man who became the legendary face of the Texas Rangers: John Coffee 'Jack' Hays. Born in Tennessee, Hays arrived in Texas in 1836, just in time to help bury victims…
Luck, Texas (Willie Nelson's Old West movie-set town) · 13.9 mi
About thirty miles west of Austin, on Willie Nelson's ranch, there's a whole Old West town — and Willie named it Luck. It went up in 1985 as Driscoll, Montana, the set for his film "Red Headed Stranger," with a church,…
Luck, Willie Nelson's ranch · 13.9 mi
West of Austin, near Spicewood, Willie Nelson has his own ranch and his own venue, and he calls the place Luck. This past May first, a crowd of heavy hitters came out to pay him tribute — Sheryl Crow, Steve Earle, Margo…
Spicewood, TX · 13.9 mi
Spicewood's history dates back to the late 19th century, with many residents tracing their lineage to early 19th-century settlers. The community's name may have originated from the spicewood timber that grew along…
Peyton Colony (Board House) · 14.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Peyton Colony, a community established in 1865 by freed slaves led by Peyton Roberts. Born into slavery in Virginia, Roberts came to Texas in the 1820s. After emancipation, these families…
Mt. Horeb Baptist Church · 14.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through what used to be Peyton Colony, just outside Blanco. This area owes its beginnings to Peyton Roberts, who was born a slave in Virginia. After gaining his freedom at the end of the Civil War, he…
Old Rock Store · 14.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Old Rock Store in Austin, a building that tells a story of German influence and local grit. Built in 1898, its stone walls were laid by a German mason, echoing the style of early German rock…
Roberts-Teague Cemetery · 14.0 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Roberts-Teague Cemetery, established in 1898 when Joseph Roberts donated this land for an infant's burial. It holds the stories of the families who farmed, ranched, and worked these canyons for…
The Engineering That Made the Town · 14.1 mi
The beautiful lake that defines Point Venture is not a natural feature. It's a massive work of civil engineering, and the town itself is an unintentional byproduct. In the 1930s, the lower Colorado River was infamous…
The Pro Golfer's Hideaway · 14.1 mi
When developers planned Point Venture in the late 1960s on this peninsula in Lake Travis, they knew they needed a signature attraction. A marina was obvious, but they wanted more. So the course laid out here in 1972…
From Resort to Real Town · 14.1 mi
For its first thirty years Point Venture wasn't technically a town. It was an unincorporated community on the north shore of Lake Travis — a second-home and family vacation destination since the early 1970s — governed…
Johnson, William Parks · 14.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through the Texas Hill Country, maybe near Wimberley, and you're listening to the radio. Well, right here in Texas, back in 1932, a radio pioneer named William Parks Johnson had an idea. While working for…
Wimberley, Pleasant · 14.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Wimberley, a town that owes its very name to the man who made it a hub: Pleasant Wimberley. He arrived in Texas on Christmas Day, 1847, settling first near Brenham. By 1855, he’d moved his growing…
Blanco River · 14.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through the beautiful Texas Hill Country, and right here, the Blanco River has been a lifeline for centuries. Spanish explorers named it back in 1721 for the white limestone that lines its banks. Imagine…
Wimberley, TX · 14.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Wimberley, a town that literally changed its name three times in less than thirty years, all thanks to one key business: the mill. It started as Winters' Mill in 1856, built by a San Jacinto…
Lohmans Crossing · 14.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Lohmans Crossing, named for John Henry Lohmans. He came all the way from Hanover, Germany, in 1842, settling first in Austin. But in 1867, he moved out here, cleared land, and started…
Czichos House · 14.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Czichos House, a pioneer home built by hand from cedar logs, chinked with clay. It was constructed in Comal County around 1850. But this house became home to Dr. Adolph Schlameus and his large…
Saunders, John Henry · 14.2 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Wimberley, a town with roots stretching back to the 1870s. Right here, John Henry Saunders, a Confederate veteran and teacher, arrived in 1870. He settled at Purgatory Springs, just west of San…
Thomas C. and Eliza V. Felps · 14.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Johnson City, and just ahead is the site where a young couple met a tragic end. Thomas C. Felps had come to Texas in 1850 and settled in this area by 1856, working as a freighter and serving with…
Peyton Colony Lime Kiln · 14.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Blanco County, and you might see the remnants of a community built by freed slaves after the Civil War. Peyton Colony was established in the 1860s by Peyton Roberts, a former slave himself.…
Barton Creek, TX · 14.5 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Barton Creek, a community that started in 1974 as a high-end development. It quickly became the center of a fierce battle between developers, environmentalists, and citizens. The fight was all…
Luck Ranch — Willie Nelson's Old West Town · 14.6 mi · Local history
You're rolling near Luck Ranch, Willie Nelson's 500-acre spread in Spicewood on Bee Creek Road. In nineteen eighty-five the production crew for Willie's film Red Headed Stranger built a full Old West town as the set —…
Barton Creek, TX · 14.6 mi
Barton Creek, a ribbon of limestone and cypress cutting through Austin, has long been a muse and a training ground. Before it was a destination, it was a backdrop for those honing their craft, whether it was a riff on a…
Willie Nelson's Cut-N-Putt · 15.2 mi
Right here in Briarcliff is a golf course unlike any other, thanks to its famous owner, Willie Nelson. In 1979 he bought the bankrupt Briarcliff Yacht and Golf Club — a nine-hole course built in 1968 — for $250,000,…
The Dam That Made the Town · 15.2 mi
The very ground Briarcliff is built on exists because of a monumental feat of engineering you can't see from here: Mansfield Dam. Before the 1940s, the Colorado River was notoriously flood-prone, devastating Austin…
The Fight to Become a Village · 15.2 mi
Briarcliff looks peaceful today, but it began as something else entirely: a resort laid out on a peninsula of Lake Travis in the 1960s, a place people drove out to for the weekend. For its first couple of decades it was…
Streets Named for Kincheon's Children · 15.3 mi
In June 1865, a former slave from Mississippi named Thomas Kincheon settled this stretch of land, bordered roughly by what's now Paisano Trail, Davis Lane, Brodie Lane, and Longview Road. Unlike most freedom colonies of…
Kincheonville · 15.4 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Kincheonville, a community born from freedom after the Civil War. Thomas Kincheon, a former slave, founded this place around 1865. Unlike many freedmen's communities, Kincheonville…
Manchaca, TX · 15.4 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Manchaca, a community named for the springs where José Antonio Menchaca once camped. It might seem quiet now, but this spot got a jolt of life in 1881. That's when the International-Great Northern…
Standing on a Sponge: The Edwards Aquifer · 15.5 mi
As you travel through Buda, you're driving over one of the most important and sensitive pieces of natural infrastructure in Texas: the Edwards Aquifer Recharge Zone. The limestone bedrock beneath you, along the Balcones…
Manchaca, TX · 15.5 mi
A surprising fact about Manchaca Springs is their historical significance as a stopping place along the Old San Antonio Road and later the Chisholm Trail. The springs provided a crucial water source for travelers and…
The Carrington Hotel: Heart of the Railroad · 15.5 mi
Buda began on April 1, 1881, when a woman named Cornelia Trimble donated land for a townsite beside a brand-new International and Great Northern depot. The depot was called Du Pre at first, and the older community of…
Education in Manchaca · 15.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past what used to be the heart of education in Manchaca. This community, named for Tejano Officer Jose Antonio Menchaca, got its first post office way back in 1851. But learning didn't really get going…
Barton Cemetery · 15.5 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the Barton Cemetery, a quiet resting place that started with a baby's grave. James Barton brought his family to Texas in the 1850s, settling on land originally granted by Mexico. In 1873, his infant…
Haupt, William Walton · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Hays County right now, near Mountain City. This area owes its name to William Walton Haupt, a man who was so much more than just a farmer. Haupt was an inventor, a scientist, and an innovator. He…
Mountain City, TX · 15.6 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Hays County, and right here is the site of Mountain City. It was a bustling supply center before the Civil War, serving farmers and ranchers. This spot even hosted one of the earliest stagecoach…
Manchaca United Methodist Church · 15.6 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of Manchaca United Methodist Church. Methodists here began meeting in 1871, with services held in an old rock church. The congregation was formally organized in 1874 and has served the…
Texas Western Swing Hall of Fame · 15.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Central Texas, and maybe you've got some classic western swing on the radio. Well, right here in Buda, Texas, a nonprofit was founded back in 1988 to honor the legends of that sound. Al Dressen, a…
Hughson, Cecil Carlton, Jr. [Tex] · 15.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through Central Texas, maybe near Buda, where Cecil 'Tex' Hughson Jr. was born. He wasn't just any kid; he became a Major League Baseball pitcher for the Boston Red Sox. In 1942, Hughson had an absolutely…
Antioch Colony, TX · 15.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving through eastern Hays County, not far from Buda. Right here is the site of Antioch Colony. In 1859, a man named Joseph Rowley bought this land. After the Civil War, he sold tracts to freed slaves, and they…
Buda, TX · 15.8 mi · Tsha Handbook
You're driving past Buda, a town with a name that might just be a linguistic accident. It was officially established in 1881, but the area had been settled earlier. The railroad pushed through in 1880, and the…
The Town the Train Forgot · 15.9 mi
In the 1870s, Mountain City was on the map. As a key stop on the stagecoach road between Austin and San Antonio, its future seemed bright. But in 1880, surveyors for the International-Great Northern Railroad were…
An Engineer's Line on a Map · 15.9 mi
The fate of Mountain City was decided by a simple principle of engineering: the path of least resistance. In the 1870s, the town thrived on the stagecoach road, which followed the natural contours of the land, winding…
Antioch Colony · 15.9 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Hays County, near Buda, where formerly enslaved African Americans forged a new life after the Civil War. In 1870, a businessman named Joseph Rowley began selling parcels of land to these freedmen…
Mountain City, TX · 15.9 mi
Mountain City’s story is etched into the land itself – from the limestone bedrock under our feet to the winding course of Onion Creek. Founded around 1850, its initial growth was fueled by its position along the Old San…
A City by Choice, Not by Chance · 15.9 mi
If you look at a map, Mountain City seems like a quiet island in a sea of suburban growth. It has been an island before. From the early 1850s to the 1880s this was a sprawling community strung along the old Stagecoach…
Before the Iron Horse · 15.9 mi
As you drive roads like Old Stagecoach Road, try to erase the pavement and imagine it as a dusty, rutted track. Before 1880, this was the main highway. A journey from Austin to San Antonio took days, and a stop like…
Lost Creek, TX · 16.2 mi
The residential development in Lost Creek began in the late 1970s, reflecting the suburban expansion and land use changes over geological time. This process involves understanding soil composition, erosion, and the…
Buda School · 16.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past Buda School. THE BUDA SCHOOL SYSTEM ORGANIZED FROM THE CONSOLIDATION OF SEVERAL 19TH CENTURY RURAL SCHOOLS, INCLUDING ELM GROVE (LARGEST SCHOOL IN HAYS COUNTY IN 1876), GOFORTH, TURNERSVILLE,…
Buda United Methodist Church · 16.2 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Buda, and right here is the site of the town's first church. Established in 1880 by Reverend Thomas Garrett, a pioneering Methodist circuit rider, this congregation was the very first in the new…
The Village That Said 'No' to Austin · 16.3 mi
The very existence of San Leanna is a political statement. Austin was growing fast through the postwar decades, and its power of annexation loomed over the unincorporated communities on its fringe. This wooded pocket…
A Founder's Family Tribute · 16.3 mi
Most Texas towns are named for rugged pioneers, railroad barons, or distant battlefields. San Leanna is different. The land here was scrub oak and cedar - an 1885 land office letter calls the place Scrub Oak outright -…
San Leanna, TX · 16.3 mi
San Leanna's history began in the 1950s as a subdivision in Travis County. It wasn't until 1970 that the village incorporated with a mayor-alderman government. The population was a mere 200 in 1974, growing to 297 by…
Buda Christian Church · 16.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving past the site of the Buda Christian Church, organized way back in 1893. They met in another church until they built their own in 1903. Disaster struck in 1909 when a storm ripped it apart, but they…
First Methodist Church of Buda · 16.3 mi · Historical Marker
You're driving through Buda, and right here is the site of the first Methodist Church. It all started back in July of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1882</say-as>, just a year after this town was founded. A few…
The Wiener Dog Capital of Texas · 16.4 mi
Every April this quiet town turns into a stampede of stubby legs. The Buda Lions Club Country Fair and Wiener Dog Races began in 1997, after resident Diane Krejci came back from Savannah, Georgia, raving about dachshund…
The Town the Railroad Widows Named · 16.4 mi
Buda almost wasn't Buda. When the International-Great Northern Railroad punched a depot through here in 1881, the stop took the name Du Pre, and folklore says that came from the Mountain City postmaster begging a rail…
The Rock That Carries the Town's Name · 16.4 mi
Buda gave the world more than wiener dog races. There is a whole layer of rock named after this town, and it stretches for hundreds of miles across Texas. In nineteen hundred, a geologist named T.W. Vaughan was mapping…
The Layer That Steals Your Mud, Then Kicks Back · 16.4 mi
That Buda Limestone, the rock layer named after this town, has a nasty reputation in the oil patch. Ask anyone who has drilled a well through Central Texas about the Buda and watch them wince. The problem is that the…
Built Around a Depot, Run on Cotton and Cheese · 16.4 mi
Buda exists because of a railroad's straight line. When the International-Great Northern pushed its track from Austin toward San Antonio in 1880, landowner Cornelia Trimble platted a townsite right beside the new depot…
Judith, the Lady in the Antique Mall · 16.4 mi
Some buildings come with a tenant who never leaves. At the antique mall in old downtown Buda housed in a structure that's stood since 1915 the longtime ghost has a name: Judith. Owner Jeff Brown started out a skeptic,…
The Store With an Aquarium and a Mountain Inside · 16.4 mi
When the giant outdoor outfitter Cabela's opened in Buda in 2005, it didn't just bring a store it put the town on the map as a roadside destination. The 185,000-square-foot showroom sits on 126 acres right off…

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Dripping Springs — 2022 UIL 6A Volleyball State Champions

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