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Johnson City, Texas

Everything Johnson City is known for

5 songs mention this city

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Music in Johnson City

Songs About Johnson City

Hometown Jersey
Erin Enderlin
50%
"He started freshman season for Johnson City High"
Big City Blues
Charlie Robison
21%
"Skinny-dippin' in the Pedernales River"
hill country rain
jesse stratton band
20%
Ego Rock
Janis Joplin
6%
"you know I played scrabble with L.B.J"
Stop Moving to Florida
Melvins
3%
"And they say that LBJ was a Soviet Jew"

Artists From Johnson City

No artists from Johnson City in the database yet.

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Johnson City

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Johnson City.

Pedernales River 6 songs Blanco River 4 songs Texas State Highway 71 2 songs Texas Colorado River 6 songs Guadalupe River 18 songs Interstate 10 36 songs

History of Johnson City

The House Where a President Grew Up RoadyGoat

Just off the square stands a tidy clapboard Victorian house that's the reason a lot of travelers ever turn off the highway here. This is the Boyhood Home of Lyndon B. Johnson. His family moved into the three-bedroom house in 1913, when he was five years old, and he lived here through his school years until he graduated in 1924. It's an ordinary Hill Country house on an ordinary street, which is exactly the point: this is where a small-town Texas kid grew up before the wider world ever heard his name. Years later, while he was in the White House, Johnson had the home restored, and in 1965 it was designated a National Historic Landmark. Today it's the heart of the Johnson City side of the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park. Park rangers lead tours from the nearby visitor center, walking you through rooms furnished to look as they did in the 1920s. You're standing in the hometown that shaped him long before anything else did. (Source: National Park Service; Handbook of Texas.)

RoadyGoat →

The Man the Whole Town Is Named For RoadyGoat

The town square you're rolling into carries one family's name on purpose. James Polk Johnson, born in Georgia and raised in DeWitt County, came home from the Confederate army and rode up to Blanco County in the 1860s to join his uncles in the cattle business. He was a forebear of a future president, but in his own day he was a town-maker. Frustrated that the county seat down in Blanco sat too far from the population spread along the Pedernales, Johnson started laying out a brand-new community on land that had been granted to James Fentress and had come into his hands. A post office opened here in 1878, and he soon put up a two-story office building and hotel and donated lots for a school to anchor the place. The community took his name. He died in 1885, only in his thirties, and never got to see his real dream come true. That payoff would land six years after his death, when the county seat finally moved here. (Source: Handbook of Texas; Johnson City historical markers.)

RoadyGoat →

The Cabin Where the Johnson Family Started RoadyGoat

Walk the restored prairie on the west side of town and you reach where this whole family story begins. In 1867 Samuel Ealy Johnson Sr. and his bride Eliza settled a simple two-room dogtrot cabin here, log rooms joined under one roof with an open breezeway between them, a design built so a dog, or a hot Hill Country wind, could trot straight through for relief in summer. Sam and his brother Tom ran a cattle operation out of this spot, and it was a smart location: the Pedernales and Blanco river valleys gave them grass and water. The brothers turned the place into a rendezvous, taking in herds from other owners, buying on credit in spring, then driving the stock north on the Chisholm Trail and coming back in autumn with gold to settle up. This is the founding family the town is named for, generations before a grandson became famous. The settlement is preserved today inside the Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park, dogtrot cabin and barns and all. (Source: National Park Service; Handbook of Texas.)

RoadyGoat →

L.B.J. Boyhood Home

1901

Sam Ealy Johnson Jr. (1877-1937) and his wife Rebekah Baines Johnson (1881-1958) bought this residence in 1913. Sam, an educator and six-term Texas legislator, and Rebekah, an educator and journalist, raised five children here. The frame house was built in 1901, with simple Classical details and decorative bargeboards of milled wood. Each wing is one room deep for light and ventilation. Various porches, open and enclosed, indicate additions over the years. In 1937, the Johnson's eldest son, Lyndon (1908-1973), launched his first campaign for Congress, and his ascent to the U.S. presidency, from the east porch. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965.

Historical Marker →

Johnson City, TX

1876

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. That figure increased to 1,191 by 2000.

Tsha Handbook →

Johnson, Samuel Ealy, Jr.

1904

Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr., legislator and father of Lyndon Baines Johnson , the son of Eliza (Bunton) and Samuel Ealy Johnson, Sr. , was born at Buda, Texas, on October 11, 1877. He moved with his parents to Gillespie County, where he attended school at Johnson City. Although forced to leave school at an early age, he passed the teacher's examination and was awarded a teaching certification. He taught school in 1896 at White Oak School in Sandy and later at Rocky School near Hye. In 1904 he was elected to the state legislature from the Eighty-ninth District, succeeding his future father-in-law, Joseph Wilson Baines . He served in the Twenty-ninth, Thirtieth, Thirty-fifth, Thirty-sixth, Thirty-seventh, and Thirty-eighth legislatures. He was the author of the Alamo Purchase Bill (which appropriated $65,000 for the purchase of the Alamo property), a bill providing $3 million to aid drought-stricken farmers and ranchers of West Texas, the Blue Sky Law , and other important legislative measures. On August 20, 1907, Johnson married Rebekah Baines ( see JOHNSON, REBEKAH BAINES ). The couple were parents of five children, including the thirty-sixth president of the United States. In 1906 Samuel E. Johnson, Jr., suffered severe financial losses, which wiped out his cotton holdings and left him deeply in debt. For a number of years he was engaged in real estate transactions. In 1935 and 1937 he was stricken with heart attacks. He died on October 23, 1937, and was buried in the family cemetery at Johnson City.

Tsha Handbook →

Johnson, Samuel Ealy, Sr.

1846

Samuel Ealy Johnson, Sr., cattleman, soldier, and grandfather of Lyndon Baines Johnson , the tenth child of Jesse and Lucy Webb (Barnett) Johnson, was born in Alabama on November 12, 1838. The family moved to Georgia and in 1846 to Lockhart, Texas. Sam's parents died in the late 1850s, and Sam and his brother Jesse Thomas built a port-holed rock barn as a headquarters for their cattle business at what is now Johnson City. Sam enlisted in Col. Xavier Blanchard Debray 's regiment on September 18, 1861, and served until the end of the Civil War on the coast of Texas and in Louisiana. He was present at the battle of Galveston and at the battle of Pleasant Hill in Louisiana. After the war he returned to Lockhart and Johnson City and resumed his cattle buying. He and his brother trailed cattle to Kansas and Montana from 1870 to 1873. Johnson was married to Eliza Bunton on December 11, 1867, in Lockhart, and the couple set up housekeeping in the log cabin at Johnson City that the two brothers had used before the war. They moved to Caldwell County and later to Buda in Hays County, where all but the oldest of their nine children were born. The family returned to Blanco County about 1889 and settled on the Pedernales River twelve miles from Johnson City. Johnson died of pneumonia at Stonewall, Texas, on February 25, 1915.

Tsha Handbook →

Lyndon B. Johnson and Hill Country Electrification

1937

LYNDON B. JOHNSON AND HILL COUNTRY ELECTRIFICATION BY THE 1930s, MANY RESIDENTS OF CITIES ACROSS THE U.S. WERE BENEFITING FROM THE COMMON USE OF ELECTRICITY. HOWEVER, A VAST MAJORITY OF RURAL AREAS LACKED ELECTRIC SERVICE, WHICH COMPOUNDED DEPRESSION-ERA PROBLEMS FOR FARMERS WHOSE CROP RETURNS WERE ALREADY MEAGER. IN 1935, PRESIDENT FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT ESTABLISHED THE RURAL ELECTRIFICATION ADMINISTRATION (REA) TO MAKE LOANS TO COOPERATIVES ESTABLISHED BY THE FARMERS THEMSELVES. ALTHOUGH THE REA QUICKLY HELPED BRING ELECTRICITY TO RURAL AMERICA, ITS PROGRAM DID NOT EXTEND TO THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY, WHOSE SPARSE POPULATION DID NOT MEET QUALIFICATIONS. IN 1937, FUTURE PRESIDENT LYNDON B. JOHNSON WORKED TO BRING ELECTRICITY TO THE AREA, A PROMISE HE MADE DURING HIS SUCCESSFUL RUN FOR THE U.S. CONGRESS THAT YEAR. HIS PLAN FOCUSED ON TWO LOWER COLORADO RIVER DAMS: BUCHANAN IN BURNET COUNTY AND MARSHALL FORD (NOW MANSFIELD) IN TRAVIS COUNTY. JOHNSON’S APPEALS TO ROOSEVELT AND GOVERNMENT AGENCIES LED TO AN EASING OF THE REA’S REQUIREMENTS. RANCHER E. BABE SMITH JOINED JOHNSON IN CANVASSING HIS DISTRICT TO CONVINCE FARMERS TO PAY $5 DEPOSITS, WHICH WOULD ALLOW THE PEDERNALES ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE (PEC) TO BUILD INFRASTRUCTURE AND SELL POWER. IN 1938, WITH ABOUT 3,300 FAMILIES SIGNED FOR ELECTRIC SERVICE, THE REA AWARDED THE PEC A LOAN TO BUILD OVER 1,700 MILES OF ELECTRIC LINES, THE LARGEST ALLOTMENT EVER MADE BY THE ADMINISTRATION. IN THE FALL OF 1939, ELECTRICITY BEGAN TO FLOW. THE PEC BECAME THE NATION’S LARGEST ELECTRIC COOPERATIVE AND REMAINS AMONG THE DOZENS OF OTHER SUCH COOPERATIVES ACROSS TEXAS. LYNDON JOHNSON’S WORK WAS ESSENTIAL IN THEIR FORMATION AND THE EXPANSION OF ELECTRIFICATION IN THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY. 175 YEARS OF TEXAS INDEPENDENCE * 1836-2011

Historical Marker →

Dr. James F. Barnwell

1898

James Franklin Barnwell was born on October 23, 1874 in Bowdon, Georgia. His family had a tradition of doctors, including his grandfather and three uncles. Following completion of his medical education at the University of Tennessee in 1896, Barnwell and his mother moved to Hamilton County, Texas. Later, he had additional graduate surgery courses at the University of Chicago and Tulane University in New Orleans. He passed the Texas State Board of Medical Examiners on July 27, 1898. Dr. Barnwell arrived in Johnson City in a horse-drawn buggy in 1898. His first office was in a building west of the Blanco County Jail, consisting of his office and a room to mix medications. Dr. Barnwell built Blanco County’s first hospital on the east side of the courthouse square in 1913. His residence was on the first floor and the hospital was on the second floor. The hospital was equipped with the county’s first x-ray machine and a Delco plant to furnish electricity for better lighting. Dr. Barnwell served Blanco County as a physician, surgeon and respected community leader. He was married to Agnes Wall with whom he had two children. Upon her death, he married Irene Lewis, with whom he had one child. Irene was a nurse who worked beside her husband. Dr. Barnwell was also a member of the Johnson City School Board, president of Johnson City State Bank, and county health physician. Dr. Barnwell died on June 16, 1934 and was buried in the Johnson City Masonic Cemetery. His obituary in the Johnson City Record Courier called him a “skilled and able surgeon” who had established “one of the best small town hospitals in the Hill Country.”

Historical Marker →

Things to Do in Johnson City

nature 9.7 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 13.2 mi away
LBJ Ranch

Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in this stretch of the Hill Country in 1908 and came home to it every chance he got even as president. The ranch on the…
historical 15.6 mi away
Birthplace and Burial of a President

Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in Stonewall on August 27 1908 in a small farmhouse on the Pedernales River. He served as the 36th President and spent about 20…
quirky 17.4 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.…
nature 17.4 mi away
Hamilton Pool Preserve

A natural swimming hole under a 50-foot waterfall in a collapsed grotto.
quirky 20.0 mi away
Luckenbach Texas

The entire 'town' is a dance hall and post office. Waylon sang about it.
quirky 21.8 mi away
The Song Nobody Had Seen

When Waylon Jennings recorded Luckenbach Texas (Back to the Basics of Love) in 1977 it shot to number one on the country charts and number 25 on the pop…
quirky 21.9 mi away
The Town That Sold for Thirty Grand

In 1970 old Benno Engel retired as postmaster of Luckenbach Texas and placed an ad in the local paper that read TOWN FOR SALE -- lock stock and dancehall. The…
day trip
Day Trip to Johnson City 🇺🇸 (FULL EPISODE) S5 E2

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

Sports in Johnson City

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 2A · Volleyball · 2024

Lyndon B Johnson — 2024 UIL 2A Division 1 Volleyball State Champions

Most recent: 2024 2A Division 1

Johnson City, nestled in the Texas Hill Country, is home to a proud athletic tradition at Lyndon B Johnson High School. The LBJ High School volleyball program, competing in Class 2A, has achieved significant success, earning a UIL state championship. This accomplishment highlights the dedication and hard work within the program, bringing statewide recognition to the community.

The Eagles' volleyball team has demonstrated its competitive spirit and skill on the court. Their state title reflects a commitment to excellence that resonates throughout Johnson City. The community takes pride in supporting its student-athletes, fostering an environment where competitive sports thrive.

State titles
2024
Most recent
2024
Class
2A
The moment

The Lyndon B Johnson High School volleyball team secured the 2024 Class 2A Division 1 state championship.

Sources: UIL State Championship Archives

Everything Near Johnson City

169 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

  • Johnson City, TX · Tsha Handbook

    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…

  • Johnson, Samuel Ealy, Jr. · Tsha Handbook

    Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr., legislator and father of Lyndon Baines Johnson , the son of Eliza (Bunton) and Samuel Ealy Johnson, Sr. , was born at Buda, Texas, on October 11, 1877. He moved with his parents to Gillespie…

  • Johnson, Samuel Ealy, Sr. · Tsha Handbook

    Samuel Ealy Johnson, Sr., cattleman, soldier, and grandfather of Lyndon Baines Johnson , the tenth child of Jesse and Lucy Webb (Barnett) Johnson, was born in Alabama on November 12, 1838. The family moved to Georgia…

  • Pedernales Electric Cooperative · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the Texas Hill Country, and right here in Johnson City, a revolution in rural life sparked in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1938</say-as>. Frustrated by a lack of electricity from private…

  • Blanco County · Tsha Handbook

    Blanco County is in the Hill Country of south central Texas, bordered on the west by Gillespie County, on the north by Burnet and Llano counties, on the east by Hays County, and on the south by Kendall and Comal…

  • Johnson, Rebekah Baines · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the Hill Country, maybe near Johnson City, and right here is where Rebekah Baines Johnson worked to shape a future president. Born in McKinney in 1881, she moved around Texas, studied at Baylor…

  • L.B.J. Boyhood Home · 0.3 mi · Historical Marker

    Sam Ealy Johnson Jr. (1877-1937) and his wife Rebekah Baines Johnson (1881-1958) bought this residence in 1913. Sam, an educator and six-term Texas legislator, and Rebekah, an educator and journalist, raised five…

  • Lyndon B. Johnson and Hill Country Electrification · 0.3 mi · Historical Marker

    LYNDON B. JOHNSON AND HILL COUNTRY ELECTRIFICATION BY THE 1930s, MANY RESIDENTS OF CITIES ACROSS THE U.S. WERE BENEFITING FROM THE COMMON USE OF ELECTRICITY. HOWEVER, A VAST MAJORITY OF RURAL AREAS LACKED ELECTRIC…

  • The House Where a President Grew Up · 0.4 mi

    Just off the square stands a tidy clapboard Victorian house that's the reason a lot of travelers ever turn off the highway here. This is the Boyhood Home of Lyndon B. Johnson. His family moved into the three-bedroom…

  • The Man the Whole Town Is Named For · 0.4 mi

    The town square you're rolling into carries one family's name on purpose. James Polk Johnson, born in Georgia and raised in DeWitt County, came home from the Confederate army and rode up to Blanco County in the 1860s to…

  • The Cabin Where the Johnson Family Started · 0.4 mi

    Walk the restored prairie on the west side of town and you reach where this whole family story begins. In 1867 Samuel Ealy Johnson Sr. and his bride Eliza settled a simple two-room dogtrot cabin here, log rooms joined…

  • When a Tiny Town Lights Up Like a Galaxy · 0.4 mi

    Every winter this little county seat turns into one of the brightest Christmas towns in Texas. The tradition called Lights Spectacular started in 1989, when the local Garden Club began stringing lights, and it grew up…

Show all 169 nearby places
  • The Vote That Stole the County Seat · 0.4 mi

    Johnson City did not become the seat of Blanco County by accident. It took a fourteen-year fight. Settlers along the Pedernales, James Polk Johnson among them, argued from 1876 onward that the old county seat down in…

  • The 1880 Grain Mill That Now Grinds Out Scientists · 0.4 mi

    The tall industrial building on Lady Bird Lane is the most town-specific science story in Johnson City, because its bones are pure 1880s machinery. The structure went up around 1880 as a steam-powered grist mill and…

  • A Town Built on Trail-Drive Money · 0.4 mi

    For most of its life this was a ranch town, plain and simple, and the rhythm of the place was set by cattle and the open range. Before there was ever a courthouse on the square, the country around the Pedernales worked…

  • Built by a Capitol Stonemason · 0.4 mi

    The handsome stone courthouse anchoring the square has a pedigree most small-town courthouses can't match. After Johnson City won the county seat, it needed a real seat of government, and in 1915 the commissioners…

  • The Hitchhiker on Highway 281 · 0.4 mi

    Out on U.S. 281, north of town toward Blanco, there's a stretch locals tell a dark old story about. In late August of 1885, a Blanco County man named Albert "Al" Lackey went on a killing spree across the rough country…

  • Craft Beer in the Old Hardware Store · 0.4 mi

    Right off the courthouse square, Pecan Street Brewing pours its beer inside a building that used to sell hammers and fence wire. The brewpub sits in the old Blanco County hardware store, a 1950s commercial building that…

  • 1894 Blanco County Jail · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Johnson City, and right here is the old Blanco County Jail, built in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1894</say-as>. Before this limestone beauty, prisoners were kept in a damp basement.…

  • Dr. James F. Barnwell · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker

    James Franklin Barnwell was born on October 23, 1874 in Bowdon, Georgia. His family had a tradition of doctors, including his grandfather and three uncles. Following completion of his medical education at the University…

  • Blanco County Courthouse · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Johnson City, and right here is the Blanco County Courthouse. This beautiful limestone building, designed in the Classical Revival style with its Doric columns and domed cupola, was built in 1916.…

  • First Baptist Church of Johnson City · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the First Baptist Church of Johnson City. Seven members formed the Missionary Baptist Church of Christ here in 1879, holding services in the schoolhouse. The original church building was…

  • Blocker, John Rufus · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the heart of Texas cattle country, and right here, you're passing through the territory once roamed by legendary trail drivers like John Rufus Blocker. Blocker wasn't just any rancher; he was a…

  • Johnson, James Polk, Building · 0.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Johnson City, the town named for its founder, James Polk Johnson. Look to your right, and you might see the building he constructed back in the 1870s. This place has seen it all: general stores,…

  • Hye, TX · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    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,…

  • Blocker, William Butler · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the Texas Hill Country, maybe near Blanco County, where the legend of Bill Blocker comes alive. Born in Alabama in 1850, Blocker was practically raised on a ranch south of Austin, starting on…

  • Cypress Creek (Blanco County) · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the Texas Hill Country, near the Pedernales River. Right here, the waters of Cypress Creek have been a lifeline for centuries. Back in 1849, Mormon settlers tapped into the springs along this…

  • Deer Creek, Battle of · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Blanco County, not far from where a fierce fight happened back in August of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1872</say-as>. Ten local men, spurred by recent raids, spotted an Indian scout…

  • Fuchs, Adolf · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the Texas Hill Country, perhaps near Marble Falls. Right here, in what was once the frontier, lived Adolf Fuchs. He was a Lutheran minister, a musician, and a pioneer who arrived from Germany in…

  • Healer, John W. · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what is now Blanco County, Texas, but back in the 1830s, this land was part of the Republic of Texas. Right here, John W. Healer, a soldier in the Texas Revolutionary Army, was granted land for…

  • Krueger, Max Amadeus Paulus · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Blanco County, and right here is the land where Max Krueger built a life, lost it, and started all over again. He came to Texas from Germany in 1868, seeking a warmer climate for his health. He…

  • Roberts, Daniel Webster · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the Texas Hill Country, a place Daniel Webster Roberts knew like the back of his hand. Born in Mississippi in 1841, his family moved to Texas three times, finally settling near Round Mountain in…

  • First Christian Church of Johnson City · 0.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the First Christian Church of Johnson City. This congregation got its start in 1903 with just twenty-six members and a traveling evangelist. Land for the sanctuary came from Judge N. T. Stubbs, and…

  • Peyton, TX (Blanco County) · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    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…

  • McCrocklin, Jesse Lindsay · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what is now Blanco County, an area that once held one of only four Mexican land grants issued here. That grant belonged to Jesse Lindsay McCrocklin, a farmer who arrived in Texas in 1833.…

  • Montgomery, Robert Hargrove · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Blanco County, not far from where Robert Hargrove Montgomery was born. He became a University of Texas economics professor, known for his captivating lectures and colorful anecdotes. But…

  • Twin Sisters, TX · 0.6 mi · Tsha Handbook

    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…

  • Blanco County · 0.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Blanco County, formed way back in 1858 from parts of Burnet, Hays, Gillespie, and Comal counties. It's named for the Blanco River that flows through the area. The county seat was Blanco City until…

  • Johnson City Masonic Cemetery · 0.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Johnson City Masonic Cemetery, purchased by local Masons back in 1892. It holds the graves of community leaders and military veterans, stretching from the War of 1812 all the way to Vietnam. And…

  • Johnson, James Polk · 0.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Johnson City, a town named for the man who founded it, James Polk Johnson. Born in Georgia in 1845, Johnson came to Texas and served in the Confederate army. After the Civil War, he joined his…

  • Odiorne, Dr. James · 1.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Johnson City, Texas, where Dr. James Odiorne practiced medicine. He arrived in Texas in 1857, settling in Blanco County in 1860. During the Civil War, he served as a surgeon at Fort Mason. Odiorne…

  • Trail Drives, Blanco County · 1.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Johnson City, and right here is the former headquarters of one of the biggest cattle operations in the Texas Hill Country. In the 1870s, brothers J.T. and Sam Ealy Johnson ran thousands of cattle…

  • Bringing Light to the Hill Country · 2.8 mi

    Before the late 1930s, the Texas Hill Country was dark. Private utility companies refused to build here, arguing it was unprofitable to run power lines across the rugged limestone terrain for so few customers. This is…

  • Johnson City, TX · 2.8 mi

    Johnson City was founded by James P. Johnson, who donated a 320-acre site on the Pedernales River for the founding of the town in 1879. It was the hometown of Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th president of the United States.

  • Thomas C. and Eliza V. Felps · 7.5 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…

  • The Highway Name That Took Seventy Years to Make Legal · 7.7 mi

    Every mile of U S Highway Two Eighty One inside Texas is the American Legion Memorial Highway, and the name is much older than the law behind it. On April thirtieth, nineteen thirty five, the Texas Highway Commission…

  • Home County of Pioneer Leader Joseph Wilson Baines · 7.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the Texas Hill Country, not far from Johnson City. Keep an eye out for the marker honoring Joseph Wilson Baines, a man whose life story is woven into the fabric of Texas history. Born in Louisiana…

  • Hye, TX · 8.5 mi

    In 1965, a significant event took place in Hye when President Lyndon B. Johnson swore in Lawrence F. O'Brien as United States Postmaster General on the porch of the Hye post office. Johnson's boyhood home is located…

  • Round Mountain, TX (Blanco County) · 8.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Round Mountain, a Texas community that owes its existence to a landmark and a stagecoach route. Back in 1854, Joseph Bird became the first settler here, building a log home near the creek. By…

  • Pedernales Falls · 9.7 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…

  • Hye Post Office · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Hye Post Office, a place that served as a tiny but significant stop on the road to the presidency. It all started back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1880</say-as>, named for founder…

  • Blanco County Courthouse · 10.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Blanco County Courthouse, a grand Victorian structure designed by F. E. Ruffini. It was built in 1886 as the county's first permanent courthouse, but its time as the seat of power was…

  • The Brewery That Started in a Basement · 11.0 mi

    One of the better-known craft breweries in Texas got its start under an antique store in downtown Blanco. In 1996 Philip, Diane, and Charles Conner began brewing English-style ales in the basement of that shop, naming…

  • Blanco High School · 11.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Blanco High School. Chartered in 1883, it began as a mix of private and public education, with a limestone building opening here in 1884. The school has grown and built new facilities…

  • Elitha Smith Martin · 11.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Round Mountain, where a truly remarkable businesswoman made her mark. Elitha Smith Martin, born in Virginia in 1830, arrived in Texas in 1856 with her husband and four children. After her husband's…

  • Bird, Joseph · 11.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Round Mountain, a community that owes its very name to the man honored here, Joseph Bird. Bird was more than just a pioneer settler; he was a Baptist minister, a Civil War soldier, a county judge,…

  • Joseph and Eliza Bird Residence · 11.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Joseph and Eliza Bird Residence, a home that grew and changed with a pioneer family over a century. Portions of this structure date back to the mid-1850s, starting as two separate log cabins.…

  • First Baptist Church of Blanco · 11.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the First Baptist Church of Blanco. Organized in 1859, the congregation shared a union church until purchasing land and building their own sanctuary in 1902. The current facility was…

  • Named for a White River · 11.9 mi

    The river running through this town gave the place its name long before anyone built a cabin here. Back in 1721, members of the Aguayo expedition crossing the Hill Country looked at the pale limestone in the banks and…

  • The Surnames the River Still Carries · 11.9 mi

    Two friends put down the first stakes here, and one of their names is still on the map. In 1853 Eli Clemens Hinds and James Hughes Callahan rode up the Blanco River and built cabins on its north bank, becoming among the…

  • Blanco's Big-League First Baseman · 11.9 mi

    The kid who grew up to anchor a pennant-winning lineup came out of Blanco High School. Willie Clay Upshaw was born here on April 27, 1957, and the New York Yankees drafted him in the fifth round in 1975 straight out of…

  • How a Hill Country Town Became the Lavender Capital · 11.9 mi

    Blanco smells like Provence in June for a reason that traces back to one photographer's hunch. In the late 1990s National Geographic photographer Robb Kendrick was shooting a story in the south of France when he…

  • Walk the First Lavender Farm in Texas · 11.9 mi

    If you want to stand in the field that started Blanco's whole lavender story, this is it. Hill Country Lavender, out on FM 165 northwest of town, was the first commercial lavender farm in Texas when Robb Kendrick and…

  • The Academy on the Hill · 11.9 mi

    In a town built on ranching, one of Round Mountain's proudest achievements was an intellectual one. In 1871 the community chartered an academy, and for a place this small and this far out on the frontier, that was an…

  • The Chemistry Inside a Lavender Still · 11.9 mi

    Out at the lavender farms ringing Blanco, the real magic happens inside a steaming copper still, and it is pure chemistry. A lavender flower stores its scent in microscopic oil glands on the surface of the buds. When…

  • Mt. Horeb Baptist Church · 11.9 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…

  • Peyton Colony (Board House) · 12.0 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…

  • Blanco State Park · 12.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving past Blanco State Park, just off Highway 281. Right here, the land was deeded to the state in 1933, kicking off a major project during the Great Depression. Company 854 of the Civilian Conservation Corps,…

  • John Walton Harrington · 12.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Round Mountain, where John Walton Harrington lived most of his life. But this stockraiser and father of thirteen children started young – really young. At just thirteen years old, Harrington was a…

  • Blanco, TX · 12.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Blanco, a town that owes its existence to a bit of frontier rivalry and a name change. Back in 1853, settlers were already building cabins here along the Blanco River, ready to defend against…

  • The Courthouse That Lost Its County · 12.1 mi

    The grand limestone building on the square was built to last centuries and served as a courthouse for just four years. Blanco County accepted it on January 29, 1886, a two-story Second Empire showpiece of native…

  • The Lady in the Old Courthouse · 12.1 mi

    Locals will tell you the old limestone courthouse on the square keeps a few residents who never checked out, though you should take this one as the campfire tale it is. The most repeated legend describes a woman in a…

  • Price, Robert · 12.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Round Mountain, and just off the road here is a marker for Robert Price. He was a man who saw history happen. On April 21st, <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1836</say-as>, he was detailed…

  • Amenthal · 12.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Amenthal, a home built in 1882 by Irish craftsman Laurence Wall for a thousand bucks. It was purchased in 1887 by John and Ruth Huffman Baines, who were Lyndon B. Johnson's grandparents. They named…

  • Conn, Adrian Edwards · 12.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Adrian Edwards Conn home, built before 1873. Imagine this place with walls a full sixteen inches thick, built to last. It still boasts a hand-dug well, a rock-walled cellar, and even an…

  • Blanco Methodist Church · 12.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Blanco, where the Methodist Church you see was organized way back in 1854 by circuit rider Daniel Rawls. It took six charter members to get things started. The current building, made of native…

  • McCrocklin, Jesse L. · 12.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Blanco County, and just ahead is the final resting place of Jesse L. McCrocklin. Born in Kentucky in 1800, McCrocklin came to Texas in 1833, just in time to fight for its independence. He saw…

  • Peyton Colony Lime Kiln · 12.2 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.…

  • Lyndon Baines Johnson · 12.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the birthplace of Lyndon Baines Johnson, the 36th President of the United States. He was born right here in this house on August 27, 1908. His parents, Sam Ealy Johnson Jr. and Rebekah Baines…

  • Andreas and Frederike Lindig Farmstead · 12.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Andreas and Frederike Lindig Farmstead, a testament to German immigrant grit in the Texas Hill Country. Arriving in Texas in 1869, the Lindigs established this farmstead in 1874. They…

  • Site of the Andreas Lindig Lime Kiln · 12.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Stonewall, and just ahead is the site of the Andreas Lindig Lime Kiln. Built in 1874, this was the first lime kiln in eastern Gillespie County. Andreas Lindig, trained in Germany, used rock hauled…

  • Old Blanco County Courthouse · 12.4 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Check out that impressive building on the corner! That's the Old Blanco County Courthouse, a survivor with quite a story to tell. Built in 1886, it was designed by Frederick Ernst Ruffini in that fancy Second Empire…

  • Trinity Lutheran Church · 12.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Stonewall, where this historic Trinity Lutheran Church began in 1902. The congregation first met in the Albert Schoolhouse. Worship services here were held in German until 1950, and the church…

  • Wilke Cemetery at Albert, Texas · 12.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Wilke Cemetery at Albert, Texas. This burial ground was established in 1907 when blacksmith Friedrich August Wilke, Sr. conveyed this property for cemetery use. The first burial was Constantine…

  • A Depression-Era Park Built by Hand · 12.6 mi

    The low stone dams and shady riverside terraces in this little park are the work of young men who needed a job in the worst year of the Great Depression. When private landowners deeded this ground along the Blanco River…

  • The Courthouse That Lost Its County · 12.8 mi

    That beautiful stone building in the middle of the square is the Old Blanco County Courthouse. It looks like the proud heart of the town, and it is now, but it holds a history of a major civic defeat. Built with local…

  • The Blanco River's Wall of Water · 12.8 mi

    The Blanco River, which you see flowing so peacefully through town, is capable of unimaginable power. On Memorial Day weekend in 2015, the science of hydrology became a terrifying reality. A stalled weather system…

  • The CCC Boys and the Blanco River · 12.8 mi

    If you follow the river through town, you’ll find Blanco State Park, a narrow little park that hugs the water for about a mile. It might look modest, but it’s a living piece of American history. The park was built in…

  • The Brewery That Built a Destination · 12.8 mi

    In the mid-1990s, if you wanted a craft beer in Texas, your options were slim. But here in Blanco, something was brewing. In 1996, a small operation called Real Ale Brewing Company set up shop in the basement of an…

  • Blanco, TX · 12.8 mi

    Blanco's always been a place where the beauty of the Texas Hill Country meets a certain hardscrabble reality. The river, that Blanco River we're named for, the one that carved its way through the limestone and gave us…

  • Williams Creek School · 12.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Williams Creek School. Established to serve the rural Albert community, the Williams Creek School, also known as the Albert School, began in 1890-91 near the creek. In 1897, trustees approved…

  • LBJ Ranch (Texas White House) · 12.9 mi · Historical Marker

    LBJ governed the country from this Hill Country ranch, installing a full communications center. He was born, lived, governed, and is buried on this land.

  • LBJ Ranch - Texas White House · 13.0 mi · Historical Marker

    The LBJ Ranch in Stonewall, Texas, where Lyndon Johnson was born, lived, governed during his presidency, and is buried along the Pedernales River.

  • Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park · 13.1 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Get ready to walk where a President walked – and shaped a nation. Lyndon B. Johnson, the 36th President of the United States, called this land home. Johnson was born near here in 1908. He grew up in the area, and later,…

  • LBJ Ranch · 13.2 mi · Things to Do

    Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in this stretch of the Hill Country in 1908 and came home to it every chance he got even as president. The ranch on the…

  • Lady Birds Wildflower Revolution · 13.2 mi · Things to Do

    Lady Bird Johnson championed the Highway Beautification Act of 1965 from the Texas White House in Stonewall. She pushed to plant native wildflower seeds along…

  • Goeth Ranch House · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Cypress Mill, not far from where Carl A. Goeth settled back in 1865. He was a German immigrant who, in 1882, built this very house you might see nearby – a two-story limestone home built in the…

  • Duecker Family Homestead · 13.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Willow City, and just ahead is the Duecker Family Homestead. August Duecker, Sr. arrived from Germany in 1852, and by 1878, he and his wife Louise bought this land. Their son, August Jr., and his…

  • Albert Nebgen House · 14.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Albert Nebgen House in Stonewall. Albert Nebgen, son of German immigrants, built this farmhouse for his family around 1918. It's a classic example of the farmsteads established by early German…

  • The Muckleroy Family Memorial Highway · 14.7 mi

    This stretch of U.S. Highway Two Eighty One, between State Highway Seventy One and Ranch Road Nine Sixty Two, is the Muckleroy Family Memorial Highway. On the night of November twenty second, two thousand twenty three,…

  • Johnson, Lyndon Baines · 15.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Lyndon Baines Johnson, president of the United States, the eldest of five children of Samuel Ealy Johnson, Jr. , and Rebekah Baines Johnson , was born on August 27, 1908, on a farm in the Hill Country near Stonewall,…

  • Lyndon Baines Johnson Birthplace, Boyhood Home, and Ranch · 15.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving past the Texas birthplace of the 36th U.S. President, Lyndon Baines Johnson. Right here, in this home built by his grandfather, young LBJ entered the world on August 27, 1908. His family lived here until…

  • Lyndon B. Johnson State Historical Park · 15.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the heart of the Texas Hill Country, not far from Stonewall. Right here is Lyndon B. Johnson State Historical Park. This place wasn't just a park; it was a gift to Texas, officially opened to the…

  • Stonewall, TX · 15.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Stonewall, a community with roots stretching back to the 1870s. It all started when Israel P. Nuñez established a stage station here on the Pedernales River in 1870. He later opened a post office…

  • Stonewall, TX · 15.2 mi

    Stonewall has always been a place where the past feels present, where the rumble of Highway 290 can't quite drown out the echoes of simpler times. But even here, change finds a way. In recent years, the increasing…

  • Sauer, Emil · 15.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the Texas Hill Country, not far from where Emil Sauer was born near Stonewall in 1881. He started his education right here, but his life's journey took him far beyond these rolling hills. Sauer…

  • Stonewall Community Cemetery · 15.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Stonewall, and you're passing the Stonewall Community Cemetery. This historic graveyard originally served the settlement of Millville, laid out by Israel Nuñez, who ran a stage stop nearby after…

  • Johnson, Lyndon Baines · 15.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Stonewall, Texas, and right here is where a future President of the United States walked these halls. As a 12-year-old boy, Lyndon Baines Johnson attended the 8th grade right here, from October of…

  • The Only President Born and Buried in Texas · 15.5 mi · Things to Do

    Texas has produced or claimed several presidents but LBJ is the only one both born and buried in the state. His birthplace his ranch his Texas White House and…

  • Nunez, Israel M. · 15.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Stonewall, a town with roots in the Civil War. Look around, because you're in the place founded in 1870 by Israel M. Nunez. He was a Civil War veteran who named this town after Confederate General…

  • Peach Capital of Texas · 15.5 mi · Things to Do

    German settlers in Stonewall experimented with fruit trees in the Hill Country soil and struck gold with peaches. The area now produces about 40 percent of the…

  • The First Limekiln in Gillespie County · 15.5 mi · Things to Do

    German settler Andreas Lindig built the first limekiln in Gillespie County right at Stonewall. From his kiln the other settlers learned to manufacture lime…

  • Birthplace and Burial of a President · 15.6 mi · Things to Do

    Lyndon Baines Johnson was born in Stonewall on August 27 1908 in a small farmhouse on the Pedernales River. He served as the 36th President and spent about 20…

  • Named for Stonewall Jackson · 15.6 mi · Things to Do

    Stonewall Texas was named for Confederate General Thomas Stonewall Jackson by Israel P. Nunez who established a stage station near the site in 1870. Nunez…

  • The Underground Wine Cellar · 15.6 mi · Things to Do

    Pedernales Cellars in Stonewall boasts the largest underground barrel cellar in Texas. The family dug directly into a Hill Country hillside to create a…

  • The German Pioneers of Stonewall · 15.6 mi · Things to Do

    In the 1860s German settlers arrived at the Pedernales River crossing and began farming land that had belonged to a grant holder named Justa Flores. They…

  • Life on the Pedernales · 15.6 mi · Things to Do

    The Pedernales River defines Stonewall. LBJ swam in it as a boy conducted diplomacy beside it as president and is buried within earshot of its waters. German…

  • Blowout, TX · 15.8 mi

    In 1854, a group of two-dozen homesteaders from Kentucky settled on the east side of Comanche Creek near Comanche Spring, marking the beginning of Blowout, Texas. As more settlers arrived, the community grew upstream. A…

  • Westcave Preserve · 16.0 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…

  • Flowers Every Mother's Day · 16.6 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…

  • Charles Haynes · 17.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Horseshoe Bay, and you're passing the site of a man who came to Texas to fight for independence. Charles Haynes arrived in 1836 with the Buckeye Rangers, ready to join the Texas Revolution. After…

  • Hamilton Pool Preserve · 17.4 mi · Things to Do

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

  • Hamilton Pool · 17.4 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 · 17.4 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…

  • Captain Jesse Burnam · 17.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the area where Captain Jesse Burnam settled after fighting in the War of 1812 and helping establish Stephen F. Austin's colony. He was a delegate to key Texas conventions and a representative in the…

  • Why Texas Vodka Goes Through the Still Twenty Times · 17.8 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 · 17.9 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…

  • Lappe House · 18.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Lappe House in Mason. Maurice Lappe, a Swiss immigrant, settled here in 1884. His home was an early seat of local court and one of the first in Llano County to feature wire fencing and orchards.…

  • The Wedding Capital of Texas · 18.4 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 · 18.4 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 · 18.4 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…

  • Conrad Fuchs House · 18.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the Texas Hill Country, and right here is the site of the Conrad Fuchs House. Born in Germany in 1834, Fuchs came to Texas as a boy and settled in this area in 1853. He built this stone house in…

  • Smith, E. Kirby Smith · 19.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Fredericksburg area, home to Confederate General E. Kirby Smith. Born in Florida and a West Point grad, Smith fought in the Mexican War before heading to the Texas frontier in the 1850s. He…

  • Saint Mary's Help of Christians Catholic Church · 19.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving near where Saint Mary's Help of Christians Catholic Church stands. Catholic families first worshipped in homes here in the 1850s. The church itself was built and dedicated in 1889, with stone quarried…

  • Willow City Loop — Bluebonnet Country and the Boot Fence · 19.2 mi · Local Knowledge

    Thirteen miles of winding road through some of the most jaw-dropping Hill Country landscape you will ever see. The Willow City Loop runs between Fredericksburg and Llano, just off Highway 16, and every spring — usually…

  • St. Paul Lutheran Cemetery · 19.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the St. Paul Lutheran Cemetery near Fredericksburg. German Lutheran residents formed their congregation here in 1883, naming it St. Paulus Evangelische Gemeinde an Nord Grape Creek. The first burial…

  • Double Horn, TX · 19.3 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Burnet County, and right here, you're passing through the area once known as Double Horn. This community sprang up in 1855, named for a rather unusual sight a pioneer stumbled upon: the locked…

  • St. Paul Lutheran Church · 19.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of St. Paul Lutheran Church, the oldest rural Lutheran church in Gillespie County. Its first pastor was the Rev. M. Haag, and it began with 17 charter members. The original frame building,…

  • Harris, John William · 19.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through the heart of Texas, maybe not far from where John William Harris was born in Dripping Springs back in 1876. He grew up on a ranch, worked as a cowboy, but a pivotal experience led him to the…

  • Hugo and Anna Gold Crenwelge House · 19.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Hugo and Anna Crenwelge House in Willow City. This home, built in 1905, is a beautiful example of a rural German-Texan farmstead. Notice the hand-cut limestone, quarried right here near the site,…

  • Lower South Grape Creek School · 19.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Lower South Grape Creek School. Area settlers built a log schoolhouse 1.5 miles south of here in 1871 along South Grape Creek. It was part of Luckenbach School Precinct No. 3 until 1889, when it was…

  • Dead Man's Hole · 19.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Dead Man's Hole, a cave discovered way back in 1821. But during the Civil War and Reconstruction, this place became a notorious dumping ground. It's believed up to 17 bodies were tossed in here,…

  • Dead Man's Hole · 19.6 mi · Things to Do

    A 155-foot limestone sinkhole south of Marble Falls in Burnet County -- discovered in 1821 by entomologist Ferdinand Lueders who was chasing bugs and found a…

  • W. T. Chapman · 19.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Dripping Springs, the town that W.T. Chapman helped build! After fighting in the Civil War, Chapman arrived here in 1872. He became postmaster, a stagecoach operator, and even donated land for the…

  • The Marshall-Chapman Home · 19.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Marshall-Chapman Home, a limestone addition to a frame house built in 1871. Burrell Marshall used it as a post office before he died in 1872. His widow Martha remarried William Thomas Chapman,…

  • Bay View Restaurant · 19.7 mi · Things to Do

    Bluff-top dining over Lake LBJ near Marble Falls. Hill Country sunsets, hand-crafted cocktails, and one of the best lake views in the state.

  • Scratch Pastries on the Way Into the Hills · 19.7 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 · 19.7 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…

  • Dripping Springs United Methodist Church · 19.7 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…

  • First Baptist Church of Dripping Springs · 19.8 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,…

  • Every Drip Is Building Stone · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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 Reunion at Hurlbut Ranch · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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…

  • The First Town in Texas to Protect the Dark · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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 · 19.9 mi

    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…

  • Dripping Springs, TX · 19.9 mi

    Dripping Springs sits right where the land starts to get interesting. You're not quite in the flatlands anymore; the terrain begins to roll and heave, covered in that scraggly Ashe juniper we call cedar. Highway 290…

  • Willow City, TX · 19.9 mi

    Before the American Civil War, the area that would become Willow City was first settled, and it later became a gathering point for English-speaking settlers in Gillespie County, which was predominantly inhabited by…

  • Mt. Gainer · 19.9 mi · 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…

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