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In 2000, La Coste was the place in the United States with the highest percentage of its population reporting Alsatian ancestry, with 7.1% of the population reporting Alsatian ancestry. This unique cultural heritage sets La Coste apart from other towns in Texas and the United States.
In 2000, La Coste was the place in the United States with the highest percentage of its population reporting Alsatian ancestry, with 7.1% of the population reporting Alsatian ancestry. This unique heritage sets La Coste apart from other towns in Texas and the United States.
While nearby Castroville is famous as the 'Little Alsace of Texas,' LaCoste is a chapter in that same story. It started as a settlement called Fernando — twenty-five residents, two general stores, two saloons, and a daily stage to Castroville by 1896. Then in May of 1898 the post office was renamed LaCoste, not for anybody who lived here but for Jean B. LaCoste, a prominent San Antonio businessman and a native of France. What the place offered was something growing scarce five miles up the road in Castroville: new, affordable farmland right on a railroad. Second- and third-generation Alsatian-American families moved down to take it. You can still see the legacy in the family names on local mailboxes — Haby, Keller, Lutz, Biediger. By 1936 half of the town's four hundred people claimed Alsatian ancestry and a quarter were Hispanic, and the Southern Pacific main line was carrying out their cotton, corn, oats, pecans, and honey. Our Lady of Grace, built in 1912, still stands with its Corinthian columns and stained glass.
Medina County is immediately west of Bexar County in southwest Texas. Hondo, the county seat, is located near the geographic center of the county at 29°17' north latitude and 99°02' west longitude, 100 miles from the Mexican border at Eagle Pass. The Medina River, from which the county derives its name, traverses the northeastern portion of the county. The western part is drained by the Frio River. Medina County covers 1,331 square miles with elevations ranging from 1,995 feet in the northern Hill Country to as low as 635 feet in the southern region. The county is divided from east to west by the Balcones Escarpment , which separates the Edwards Plateau and Hill Country to the north from the Rio Grande Plains to the south. The climate is subtropical and subhumid; the summers are hot and dry. Annual rainfall averages 28.43 inches; average relative humidity is 81 percent at 6 A.M. and 49 percent at 6 P.M. The temperature averages a low of 42° F in the winter and a high of 96° in the summer. The annual growing season is 263 days. The northern Hill Country region has black waxy and limestone soils that support grasses, brush, junipers, mesquite, shinnery oaks, and live oaks. The larger southern region has sandy loam and clay soils that support bluestem, buffalo, and Arizona cottontop grasses, as well as post oak, live oak, and mesquite . Cypress and pecan trees are commonly found on the banks of rivers and creeks. Approximately 45 percent of the land in the county is considered prime farmland. Medina Lake Reservoir, completed in 1913 in the northeastern part of the county, furnishes impounded Medina River water for an extensive irrigation system throughout the eastern half of the county. Other man-made surface reservoirs have been built on Chacon, Parkers, Squirrel, Live Oak, and Elm creeks. Ranchers keep local stock tanks for water. Most subsurface or ground waters in Medina County are artesian; two major subsurface water belts are the Edwards Aquifer and the Carrizo Sand Aquifer. The county can be divided from north to south into three geological sections, the Lower Cretaceous of the Edwards Plateau, Lampasas Cut Plain, and the Comanche Plateau; the Upper Cretaceous of the Blackland Belt; and the older Tertiary of the Gulf Coast Plain. Mineral resources within the county include oil, gas, clay, sand, and gravel. High-quality clays for the production of bricks and tile are found in the D'Hanis area of western Medina County. Limestone, readily available and of good quality, is used extensively for buildings and hand-carved tombstones. Crushed limestone, flintstone, igneous pebbles, caliche, and clay are found in the county and are used widely as road materials. Bat guano is commercially mined in the limestone hills north of Hondo and marketed as a high-quality natural fertilizer. The guano mined at Ney's Cave, claimed to be one of the largest bat habitats in the world, was used in the manufacture of gun powder during the Civil War . Medina County is in an area that has been the site of human habitation for many thousands of years. Evidence of early man has been discovered at a site known as Scorpion Cave on the Medina River in the northeastern part of the county. Archeologists believe that ancestors of either Coahuiltecan or Tonkawa Indians occupied this cave continuously for several thousand years before the arrival of the first Europeans. The first Spaniard to set foot in the region was probably Alonso De León , governor of Coahuila, who passed through the area in 1689 en route to East Texas , and named the Medina River and Hondo and Seco creeks. Two years later Domingo Terán de los Ríos , the first provincial governor of Texas, tracked across southern Medina County, laying the foundation for El Camino Real (Old San Antonio Road ). The Upper Presidio Road, as the Camino Real was known in 1807, purposely skirted the Indian strongholds of the Hill Country beyond the Balcones Escarpment. Throughout the 1700s the are
The Medina River rises in north and west prongs that originate in springs in the Edwards Plateau divide of northwest Bandera County and converge near Medina (at 29°48' N, 99°15' W). The river then flows southeast for 116 miles to its mouth, on the San Antonio River in south Bexar County (at 29°14' N, 98°24' W). The first European to see the river was Alonso De León , governor of Coahuila, who led his expedition across Texas in 1689 in pursuit of the French. De León noted in his diary that he named the stream for Pedro Medina, the early Spanish engineer whose navigation tables he was using in mapping his route through the wilderness with an astrolabe. On other old maps the river is designated variously as Río Mariano, Río San José, or Río de Bagres-Catfish River. For a time it was considered the official boundary between Texas and Coahuila and shown as running to the Gulf of Mexico, with the San Antonio River labeled as a tributary. Later the designations were reversed, and, along with Cibolo Creek, the Medina has been regarded as a tributary of the San Antonio. On August 18, 1813, bearers of the green flag of the Republican Army of the North , fighting to uphold the declared independence of Mexico from Spain, met defeat in the battle of Medina at the river southeast of San Antonio de Béxar. Hundreds of rebel troops were killed by forces under Spanish general Joaquín de Arredondo . At the same site on March 2, 1836, Gen. Antonio López de Santa Anna paused in his march from the Rio Grande in order to gather forces for the final approach to Bexar and the engagement with Texans in the Alamo . Diarist José Enrique de la Peña mentions resting at the river, the making of plans, and carrying out such tasks as assigning horses to dragoons. In the midst of the excitement over impending battle, Peña still took note of "the little stream whose banks were rich with pecan trees." A decade later, the same stream, with its gallery of pecan and cypress, caught the attention of European empresario Henri Castro as he negotiated contracts to bring colonists to the new Republic of Texas . Castro chose a site at a bend of the river to lay out a town to serve outlying farms of immigrants from Alsace and nearby German states. The first band of colonists, though beset with many difficulties, arrived in 1844 to begin building Castroville. Efforts on the part of Castro and his principal partner, A. F. Louis Huth , continued for some years to recruit additional groups and individuals to the Medina valley. With success made difficult by the alternation of drought and flood typical of the Balcones Fault zone of Texas, Castro is reportedly the first to have envisioned a dam on the box canyon of the river to impound floodwater for irrigation of the fertile fields below. Near the site of the later Medina Dam, an earthen dam was built in 1850, which was soon replaced by a stone structure providing power for a downriver mill. From San Antonio and the outpost of Castroville, enterprising small bands of shingle makers and charcoal burners began working their way up the river, taking advantage of abundant timber and the protection from Indian danger provided by the Texas Rangers . There were several families camping on the river in the late 1840s at the horseshoe bend later chosen as the townsite of Bandera. Arriving in 1854 was a band of Mormons who had traveled to Texas after breaking away from the Utah-bound main group. They settled at Fredericksburg before moving on to the Medina; the group moved again from Bandera and finally established itself downriver at Mountain Valley. Till the death of leader Lyman Wight , the group remained intact and engaged in the manufacture of lumber and furniture. In 1852 John James , Charles Demontel , and John Herndon formed a partnership for the purpose of building a cypress-lumber mill and laying out a town "on the Medina above Castroville." Their plan, implemented the following year, involved a site at the dee
Built in 1912 by Alsatian immigrant and prominent local developer Emil Schmidt, the City Hotel offered public lodging previously unavailable to visitors to La Coste. Its proximity to the railroad depot made it an ideal location to offer food and lodging to the growing number of visitors and business people involved in sales, expansion of the railroad, and the building of a dam in northeastern Medina County. The elegantly furnished rooms, verandas, and restaurant and ready clientele combined to make the hotel and restaurant an immediate success. Gus and Maggie (Ma) Keller bought the property in 1928 during the National prohibition against the sale of alcoholic beverages. They nevertheless ran a saloon in the hotel known as "Kellers Place" which according to local tradition allowed patrons to gamble and drink in a back room, an activity which because of timely telephone calls avoided police detection. Maggie, who managed the saloon for almost four decades, became the subject of local legend. One of the saloon's most prominent features was the large number of bottle caps which covered its walls and ceiling. The hotel is a local landmark recognized by generations of people traveling through or visiting La Coste. 1994
This farming community was a growing settlement in July of 1867 when a group of Indians on horseback attacked Romanus Gross, age 51, and his 19-year-old son George on land belonging to the elder Gross' son-in-law, Michael Kauffmann. A party of men from Castroville was in pursuit of the Indians, who had been accused of stealing horses. Both Grosses were shot in the side; George was scalped. The community was formally organized in about 1879, the same year that Thomas Dunkin, a lawyer, arrived from New York. Dunkin lived and worked as a tutor in the home of Michael Kauffmann and his family. Seeing the growth of the community, Dunkin and Kauffmann convinced their neighbors of the need for a schoolhouse. Kauffmann provided the land and Dunkin became their first teacher. He taught an innovative curriculum designed in New York for one-room schools. Dunkin welcomed the railroad in 1881 by offering twenty acres of his own land for a station and townsite, but other necessary land could not be secured and the station was erected on a site that became Lacoste. Competition between the communities was high, and Idlewild remained an agricultural and livestock center. In 1887, Dunkin applied for a U. S. postal permit. He first chose the name Ida, for Michael Kauffmann's daughter, and then tried Ivanhoe, but both names were rejected by the postal service because they were already in use in other Texas locations. He finally named the community Idlewild after Idlewild, New York. The post office remained in service until 1902. Idlewild's second school closed in 1955. (1999)
Castroville, the "little Alsace" of Texas, is located on the Medina River and U.S. Highway 90 twenty-five miles west of San Antonio in eastern Medina County. The town was named for its founder, Henri Castro , with whom the Republic of Texas negotiated an empresario contract on January 15, 1842. Castro's grant began four miles west of the Medina River and comprised frontier lands in Comanche territory. Wanting to locate his first settlement on the Medina River, Castro purchased the sixteen leagues between his grant and the river from John McMullen of San Antonio. He arranged transport for mostly Catholic Alsatian farmers to the Texas coast, from where the colonists were escorted overland to San Antonio. On September 2, 1844, Castro set out from San Antonio with his colonists, accompanied by Texas Ranger John C. Hays and five of his rangers, to decide upon a site for settlement. The company chose a level, park-like area near a sharp bend of the Medina River covered with pecan trees. Castro recounts in his memoirs that after crossing the river members of his party killed two deer, three bears, and one alligator and caught numerous fish. Subsequently, the colonists endured raids by Comanches and Mexicans, droughts in 1848 and 1849, an invasion of locusts, and a cholera epidemic in 1849. Castro patterned his town after European villages in which small town lots were surrounded by individual farming plots. The town was surveyed by John James; its streets were named in honor of Castro's relatives and friends and the capitals of Europe. In 1844 citizens of Castroville built St. Louis Catholic Church, the first church in Medina County. Zion Lutheran Church was built in 1853; the first public school classes taught in Medina County were held in this church in 1854. By 1856 Castroville supported three large stores, a brewery, and a water-powered gristmill. The community raised corn, cattle, horses, hogs, and poultry, and sold produce to the military posts in the area. Castroville architecture and style were distinctly European. A cross was erected on Mount Gentilz ( see GENTILZ, J. L. T. ). A visitor in the 1850s described Castroville as quite "un-Texan," with its "steep thatched roofs and narrow lanes" and the inn whose interior suggested "Europe rather than the frontier." The houses were not arranged along parallel lines but were spread out over many acres. Stores and residences were constructed without the broad front porches common to the South. The house builders used rough-cut stone or stone and timber combinations and smoothed over the exterior with lime plaster. The European method of building ground floors of stone and second floors with vertically placed timbers was characteristic of two-story construction. Many of the structures erected in Castroville's earliest days continued to house people and businesses 150 years later. Local builders made use of large cypress trees growing along the Medina River to produce shingles for home use or for market. ( see GERMAN VERNACULAR ARCHITECTURE .) The first post office in Medina County opened in Castroville in 1847 with M. Laroch as postmaster. In 1848 the Texas legislature established Medina County and designated Castroville its county seat. In 1853 Castro donated two lots for the site of the new courthouse, which when completed in 1855 served as a school. A rock dam, still intact in 1945, was built in 1854 to furnish power for a gristmill. During the Civil War wagon trains loaded with freight stopped overnight at Castroville on their way to Mexico, and the town thrived. By the mid-1860s Castroville was the twelfth largest city in Texas. In 1884 the town had a population of 1,000, a weekly newspaper called the Brackett Weekly News , a steam gristmill and cotton gin, a brewery, Catholic and Lutheran churches, a convent, and a public school. The principal marketable goods produced at this time were cotton, hides, and grain. By 1890 pecans were being marketed, the Castroville Anvil was bein
Early Castroville colonist and Dutch immigrant Marie Becker Ihnken was buried just north of this site in 1847 by her son, Gerhard. The German-born Gerhard married Marie Jeanne Pichot on October 22, 1846. The Pichot family arrived on the first of Henri Castro's ships. Though they originally intended to return to France, the Pichot family remained in Texas after Marie Jeanne's father, Jean Nicolas, died of complications after a rattlesnake bite. Major civic leaders in early Castroville, the Ihnkens were farmers who raised cattle and owned and operated a sawmill, a store, and a fruit orchard on their vast lands. Particularly remembered for his agricultural contributions, Gerhard is said to have brought the first reaper and the first binder to the Castroville area. One of the oldest cemeteries in Medina County, the Ihnken family plot contains eight family members in marked graves; several others are unknown. Marie Becker Ihnken is one of the few older Castro colonists whose grave is still marked. A Freedman employed by Gerhard Ihnken is said to be buried in the cemetery. To avoid disturbing unmarked graves, the cemetery has been inactive since 1950. (1997)
In the spring of 1836 about two hundred Texas defenders held this old Spanish mission for thirteen days against a Mexican army of two thousand led by Santa…
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For over a century visitors to Castroville were more likely to hear Alsatian than English in the homes stores and taverns. The remarkable thing is the dialect…
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The Alsatian settlers who founded Castroville in 1844 faced a gauntlet of biblical proportions. First came Comanche raids. Then a fifteen-month drought…
In 1844 a French-born empresario named Henri Castro led 700 Alsatian farmers across the Atlantic to settle 25 miles west of San Antonio. They built…
299 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.
You're driving through Lacoste, Texas, a community with roots stretching back to 1893 when it was known as Fernando. <break time="400ms"/> It started small, with just a post office and a few businesses, but by 1896, it…
In 2000, La Coste was the place in the United States with the highest percentage of its population reporting Alsatian ancestry, with 7.1% of the population reporting Alsatian ancestry. This unique cultural heritage sets…
While nearby Castroville is famous as the 'Little Alsace of Texas,' LaCoste is a chapter in that same story. It started as a settlement called Fernando — twenty-five residents, two general stores, two saloons, and a…
Built in 1912 by Alsatian immigrant and prominent local developer Emil Schmidt, the City Hotel offered public lodging previously unavailable to visitors to La Coste. Its proximity to the railroad depot made it an ideal…
You're driving past Our Lady of Grace Catholic Church in La Coste. Established in 1911 after a petition the year before, this red brick, gothic-style building was a welcome sight for area Catholics who previously had to…
This farming community was a growing settlement in July of 1867 when a group of Indians on horseback attacked Romanus Gross, age 51, and his 19-year-old son George on land belonging to the elder Gross' son-in-law,…
Medina (Medina, TX) placed on the 2A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Davis Peterson (0.514 avg, 1 HR).
Medina County is immediately west of Bexar County in southwest Texas. Hondo, the county seat, is located near the geographic center of the county at 29°17' north latitude and 99°02' west longitude, 100 miles…
The Medina River rises in north and west prongs that originate in springs in the Edwards Plateau divide of northwest Bandera County and converge near Medina (at 29°48' N, 99°15' W). The river then flows…
Castroville, the "little Alsace" of Texas, is located on the Medina River and U.S. Highway 90 twenty-five miles west of San Antonio in eastern Medina County. The town was named for its founder, Henri Castro , with whom…
You're driving through Texas, a land that's seen explorers and settlers from all over the world. Long before Texas was even a republic, French explorers like La Salle were charting these lands, establishing settlements…
You're driving through the heart of the Castro colony, and right here, in what became Castroville, is where artist Théodore Gentilz first laid out this village in 1844. Hired by Henri Castro himself, Gentilz was more…
You're driving through Castroville, the birthplace of Ida Weisselberg Hadra, a talented Texas artist. Born in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1861</say-as>, Ida showed early promise, studying with renowned Austin…
You're driving through Castroville, right on the Medina River. What started as a home and dry-goods store for César Monod in 1849, quickly became the Vance Hotel. In fact, the first issue of the Castroville Era…
You're driving through Castroville, Texas, a place that became a refuge for seminarians fleeing religious persecution in Mexico. <break time="400ms"/> In January of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1915</say-as>,…
You're driving through Castroville, a town that owes a lot to John Vance. He came to Texas in 1846, following General Zachary Taylor's troops, and set up shop with his brothers in San Antonio. But Vance eventually moved…
Louise (Mother St. Andrew) Feltin, foundress of the Sisters of Divine Providence in Texas, was born to Jean Claude and Marie (Seiter) Feltin of Alsace on December 27, 1830, and educated in the villages of Geispolsheim…
Louis Huth, entrepreneur, merchant, and public official, was born on January 3, 1813, in Baden, presumably in Neufreystadt, to Ludwig and Catherine (Leicht) Huth. The elder Huth was a wine merchant and insurance agent,…
No drive through Castroville is really complete without pulling over at Haby's Alsatian Bakery, right on the highway at 207 US Highway 90 East. The bakery first opened in 1940 under Stanley Haby, whose surname is one of…
You're driving past the Joseph Meyer Homestead, a little piece of Alsace right here in Texas. Joseph and Katherine Meyer, pioneers from the Alsace region of Europe, bought this four-acre plot back in 1855. What's…
You're driving past the site of the First Baptist Church of Lytle. It all began in April of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1893</say-as>, when Dr. J.V.E. Covey and sixteen members held their first service under…
Early Castroville colonist and Dutch immigrant Marie Becker Ihnken was buried just north of this site in 1847 by her son, Gerhard. The German-born Gerhard married Marie Jeanne Pichot on October 22, 1846. The Pichot…
Imagine weary travelers in the mid-1800s, seeking rest and supplies after a long journey. This spot, now the Landmark Inn, was their haven. Swiss immigrants Cesar and Hannah Monod arrived in Castroville around 1849.…
You're driving past the Vance Hotel and Store, built in 1849 with local limestone and cypress. It started as a home, store, and post office for Swiss merchant Caesar Monod. By the 1860s, the Vance family added a wing…
You're driving past Landmark Inn Complex. These limestone structures along the Eagle Pass - San Antonio Road at the Medina River ford were once centers of trade, travel, industry, and domestic life. Alsatian colonist…
You're driving past the Renken Cemetery, a small burial ground with a story of love and community. German immigrant Henry Renken established this cemetery in 1876, right after his first wife, Lissette, died. She was…
According to the National Agricultural Statistics Service 2007 census, there are more than 70 crop operations in Atascosa, with three operations valued at more than $250,000 each. There are also more than 125 animal…
The ground around Atascosa is mostly sandy loam, and that single fact organized everything that ever grew here. Unlike heavy clay that turns sticky and hard to plow, or pure sand that won't hold water, sandy loam is the…
You're driving through Castroville, founded by Henri Castro, a fascinating figure who came from France. He served in Napoleon's army, married, and even became a U.S. citizen before returning to France to work in…
You're driving past the F. Xavier Schmidt House, built around 1870 by a master German craftsman who shaped the look of Castroville. He floated cypress logs down the Medina River for the attic timbers and used local…
You're driving past the site of Zion Evangelical Lutheran Church, a testament to the faith of German immigrants who settled this area in the 1840s. They held worship services in their homes at first, but in 1852, Zion…
For over a century visitors to Castroville were more likely to hear Alsatian than English in the homes stores and taverns. The remarkable thing is the dialect…
The Steinbach Haus was originally built between 1618 and 1648 in Wahlbach Alsace France. In 1988 the Steinbach family carefully numbered every beam and…
The Alsatian settlers who founded Castroville in 1844 faced a gauntlet of biblical proportions. First came Comanche raids. Then a fifteen-month drought…
Lytle (Lytle, TX) placed on the 3A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Mason Hill (0.526 avg, 7 HR); Peyton Phillips (3 HR); Toby Davila (0.477 avg, 2 HR).
You're driving through Castroville, the heart of a unique Texas settlement. Look around – this town owes its existence to Henri Castro, a French-born immigrant who became a key figure in Texas colonization. In <say-as…
Cross Hill Cemetery stands like a sentinel overlooking the green Medina Valley below Castroville. Walk among the weathered headstones dating back to the 1840s…
You're driving past a piece of Alsatian history right here in Texas. Jean Baptiste Cordier, an immigrant from Alsace, built this pioneer home back in 1844 using local limestone. It started with three rooms downstairs…
You're driving past the Dolch-Hans Compound, a place that tells the story of Castroville's growth. Look for the stone house, built around 1860 by German immigrants Louis and Rosina Dolch. They didn't stay long, but…
You're driving past the site of Atascosa Lodge Number 379, chartered in 1873. These eleven Master Masons started their lodge in Benton City in 1872. Their first hall, built in 1876, wasn't just for meetings; it also…
Here’s something you probably don't know about the town you're in. Your car might be in Atascosa County, but the gas station across the street could be in Medina County, and the school down the road in Bexar County.…
Read the street signs here and you're reading the founder's address book. Henri Castro, born Moise Henriques de Castro in Bayonne in 1786 into a family of Portuguese-Jewish descent, laid out his colony and named its…
The half-timbered house serving as Castroville's visitor center is older than the United States, older than Texas, older than almost anything you've ever stood inside in this state. The Steinbach Haus was originally…
Castroville, they call it "Little Alsace of Texas," and you feel that old-world charm as soon as you cross the Medina River. Henri Castro brought folks here back in '44, Alsatians mostly, and they built a town that…
Castroville's most improbable native son is a proto-punk guitar hero who later helped standardize the Blu-ray disc. James Williamson was born here on October 29, 1949. As a young man he became the scorching lead…
For its first hundred years, a stranger walking Castroville's streets was likelier to hear Alsatian than English in the homes, stores, and taverns. The settlers carried a Germanic dialect of Alsace, seasoned with French…
Down by the river behind the Landmark Inn sits one of Texas's quieter feats of frontier engineering. In 1854 George Haass and Laurent Quintle bought riverfront here and built a dam of limestone and cypress across the…
Henri Castro was a Portuguese-born Jewish immigrant who became a French citizen, then a Texas empresario. In 1842, the Republic of Texas gave him a contract to settle families west of San Antonio in exchange for land…
You're driving through Castroville, where you can see the Dubuis House. Built in 1847 by Father Claude Dubuis, it was the first example of French-Alsatian architecture in town. Dubuis, the first priest in Castro's…
In 1844 a French-born empresario named Henri Castro led 700 Alsatian farmers across the Atlantic to settle 25 miles west of San Antonio. They built…
Henri Castro was born in 1786 to a prominent Jewish family in France. He became a US citizen then returned to Europe to recruit settlers for a Texas empresario…
You're rolling into the town that calls itself the Little Alsace of Texas, and the name is no marketing slogan. In 1842 the Republic of Texas signed a colonization contract with Henri Castro, a French empresario who had…
St. Louis Catholic Church, anchoring Castroville's old core, traces back to the colony's first year. In 1844 the settlers put up the first church in what would become Medina County, a simple one-story limestone building…
Spend the night at the Landmark Inn and, if the local lore is to be believed, you may not have the room to yourself. This riverside building has put up travelers since the 1850s, when it grew from a Swiss immigrant's…
The Landmark Inn at 402 Florence Street has been watching the Medina River crossing for the better part of two centuries. It started in 1849 as a one-story limestone store and home built by Cesar and Hannah Monod, Swiss…
The town of Lytle is named for Captain John T. Lytle, and unlike most namesakes, he was actually here. Born in Pennsylvania in 1844, he came to Texas in 1860, and by 1871 he had a cattle-trailing partnership with his…
Pull over for a minute and step back in time. You're entering the Castroville Historic District, a little slice of Alsace, France, right here in Texas. In the 1840s, Henri Castro, an empresario, brought families from…
You're driving past St. Louis Church, a cornerstone for Alsatian settlers in the Republic of Texas. Dedicated in 1846 by the first Catholic Bishop of Texas, it later hosted a significant moment in Texas education. In…
You're driving past the Biry-Ahr Property, a fantastic example of early Alsatian immigrant architecture right here in Castroville. Jean Jacques Biry, an immigrant from Alsace, built this home between 1847 and 1850. The…
You're driving past General Wool and the Chihuahua Road. GENERAL WOOL AND THE CHIHUAHUA ROAD In 1846, General John Ellis Wool amassed an army of 3,400 troops in San Antonio to invade Chihuahua, Mexico. Departing from…
In 1849 a way station was built on the Medina River to serve travelers heading west from San Antonio on the El Paso Road. Perched along the riverbank the…
In 1854 the Alsatian settlers built a rock dam across the Medina River to power a gristmill for grinding their grain. They hauled native limestone and stacked…
By 1849 Castroville had become a vital water stop on the San Antonio-El Paso Road the main artery connecting civilization to the far western frontier.…
You're driving past the first permanent courthouse in Castroville, built way back in 1854. This limestone beauty, with walls 18 inches thick, served as the county seat for Medina County from 1848 until 1892. Before this…
You're driving past the Louis Haller House, a limestone home built around 1877 for his growing family. Haller arrived in Texas at just 17 years old, a native of France who came with his father in 1845. He served as a…
You're driving past the Moye, a place with a long history of service. It began as the first mother house in the United States for the Sisters of Divine Providence, founded by the Rev. John Martin Moye in 1762. Over the…
One of the most remarkable buildings in Castroville isn't originally from here at all. In fact, it's older than the United States. If you visit the grounds of the modern visitor center, you'll find the Steinbach House,…
To understand Castroville's history, you need to see the Landmark Inn. What's now a State Historic Site started in 1849, when the Frenchman Cesar Monod bought a lot here and put up a big one-story stone building with a…
Lytle owes its exact spot to a soured land deal. In 1881 the International-Great Northern Railroad struck a bargain with B. G. Andrews to place a depot on his land, called Andrews Station. The deed fell into dispute,…
The name on the town belongs to John T. Lytle, one of the great figures of the open-range cattle era. Born in Pennsylvania in 1844, he came to Atascosa County as a young man and regained his health working on his…
For generations, if you walked the streets of Castroville, you wouldn't hear much English or Spanish. You'd hear Alsatian. This unique Germanic dialect was the mother tongue of the original colonists, and they held onto…
The Medina River was more than a water source for Castroville; it was the town's first engine, thanks to some clever nineteenth-century engineering. In 1853 the Irish merchant John Vance bought the property, and in 1854…
You're driving through South Texas, and right here is Lytle, a town named for a man who helped shape the Texas cattle industry. John Thomas Lytle, a Civil War veteran, started his own ranch near Castroville in 1867. But…
You're driving through South Texas, and right here, in the mid-1870s, a massive undertaking began: the Great Western Trail. This wasn't just any cattle drive; it was a 2,000-mile lifeline stretching all the way to…
You're driving through Castroville, the heart of Alsatian culture in Texas! In 1842, Empresario Henry Castro brought his first settlers here, many from the Alsace region on the border of France and Germany. They founded…
You're driving through Castroville, and right here, you're passing the site of a tradition that's been going strong since 1847. It's St. Louis Day, celebrated around August 25th, the Feast of St. Louis. Imagine early…
What started in 1882 as a handful of families celebrating the feast of St. Louis has grown into Castrovilles signature event drawing 10000 visitors each…
You're driving past the heart of Castroville, where a piece of French culture took root. This church, St. Louis Catholic Church, wasn't just built; it was a community effort. The first resident pastor, Claude Dubuis,…
You're driving near Lytle, and right here, the community of Benton once stood. Settled in 1876, it was a bustling place with a Masonic hall and its own newspaper, the Benton City Era. Residents even tried to carve out…
You're driving through Lytle, a town named for John T. Lytle, a rancher and cattle driver who was active here as early as the 1840s. He helped establish Lytle Station on the railroad in 1882. When the post office opened…
You're driving past the home of Arcadius Steinle, a Prussian mason who settled in Castroville in 1845. He built this house starting in 1847, where he and his wife Marie raised six children. Arcadius died in 1858, and…
You're driving past the oldest Catholic cemetery in Castroville, founded way back in 1844. The original burial ground is right there, enclosed by that stone wall built in 1860. Look for the earliest marked grave:…
Lytle's history began with 321 acres patented to Henry Volkner in 1856. In 1870, Volkner sold the land for $175 to Fitch S. Adams, who allowed the first school to be built on his property. The town's name originated…
If you roll through Castroville in late August, you may hit the oldest party in town. St. Louis Day honors the Feast of St. Louis IX, the medieval French king who is the parish's patron, and locals have gathered for it…
You're passing Lytle United Methodist Church, a place with roots stretching back to 1889. It all started with W.C. Newton, a farmer and preacher known as 'The Father of the Lytle Methodist Church.' He worked hard to get…
U S Highway Ninety in Bexar County, between State Highway Two Eleven and Montgomery Road, is the Sergeant William Kuhnle Junior and Trooper Ralph G. Zerda Memorial Highway. Both men were Texas Highway Patrol officers…
About a mile southwest of Lytle, in southeastern Medina County, a settlement grew up around something buried in the ground: lignite. Lignite is a soft, young brown coal, formed from peat that never fully hardened into…
You're driving through San Antonio, and right here is the story of Hendrick Arnold. Born in Kentucky in 1804, Arnold was a participant in the capture of Bexar, fighting in December of 1835. He lived a full life in…
You're driving past the former ranch home of Charles De Montel, a man who arrived in Texas from Europe in 1838. He was a true frontiersman, helping to found Castroville and organize Medina County. De Montel served as…
You're driving past Trimble Cemetery, a final resting place for folks who met untimely ends. Edwin Trimble himself died here from a snakebite in 1869. His wife Dorothy was killed by a robber. Later, young Grace Lytle…
The little town you're rolling through carries a young woman's name, though a clerk's slip of the pen changed it forever. Back in nineteen twelve, an engineer named Fred Stark Pearson was busy dreaming up one of the…
The existence of Natalia is a direct result of a feat of civil engineering and hydrology. When Dr. Fred S. Pearson's company built the Medina Dam in 1911 and 1912 — the biggest irrigation project west of the Mississippi…
Natalia, Texas, might seem like just another peaceful dot on the map as you drive through. The quiet streets and the fields stretching out toward the horizon tell a story of hard work and simple living, rooted in…
The town of Natalia is built on a powerful promise. Beginning in 1911, crews poured the Medina Dam north of here, a monumental feat finished in 1913 and, at the time, the largest hydraulic engineering project west of…
Macdona's history is marked by a significant event on June 28, 2004, when a train crash between BNSF and Union Pacific Railroad trains led to the release of 9,400 US gallons of liquid chlorine. The chlorine immediately…
The railroad tracks that parallel the road here are a monument to 19th-century engineering, and the Sunset Route was a genuine undertaking: surveyors with transits and chains mapping the flattest line, graders building…
You're driving past Benton City Cemetery, established back in 1870. This was the first public burial ground for a community that, in its day, boasted a great school, busy businesses, and its own newspaper, the Benton…
You're driving through Medina County, passing the birthplace of Robert Lee Bobbitt, a man who wore many hats in Texas public service. After graduating from North Texas Normal College and UT Law, he served in World War…
You're driving past the site of the Benton City Institute, a school that shaped young minds right here in Atascosa County. The building went up in 1875, and the very next year, the Masons bought the top floor. Educators…
You're driving past McCulloch Cemetery, a final resting place with deep roots in Texas history. Samuel McCulloch, Jr., wounded at the Battle of Goliad in 1835, was one of the Revolution's first casualties. He later…
You're driving past the site of the Krause House, a testament to Texas pioneer grit. Anton and Johanna Krause arrived from Austria in 1854, walking much of the way to San Antonio. By 1875, they’d moved southwest of the…
Somewhere in the woods and fields around you lies the site of the Battle of Medina, the deadliest battle ever fought on Texas soil. In August 1813, a group of about 1,400 revolutionaries—Tejanos, Anglo-Americans, and…
The city of Von Ormy is one of the youngest in Texas, and its birth was anything but quiet. In the mid-2000s, as San Antonio grew south, residents here faced the prospect of being annexed. A small group, led by a young…
The spot where you're crossing the Medina River is a hundred and forty years of bridge-building stacked in one place. The river set the problem: it floods fast and hard. For generations the answer was Garza's Crossing —…
The interstate you're on follows a path that is centuries old. You're traveling along the corridor of the Camino Real de los Tejas, the 'Royal Road' that was the main highway from Mexico to Louisiana during the Spanish…
You're driving through Natalia, a town born from a dream of irrigation and a tragic twist of fate. It was founded in 1912 by the Medina Irrigation Company, named for Natalie Pearson, daughter of the project's…
This town on the Medina River carries a nobleman's name, spelled wrong. The old limestone mansion here, called the Castle on the Medina, was built in 1861 by San Antonio merchant Enoch Jones. In 1886 an Austrian…
For well over a century, travelers have funneled across the Medina River near this one spot. In 1850 a man named Miguel de la Garza ran a ferry here to serve the new San Antonio to Laredo stagecoach line, and the ford…
Von Ormy is tiny, but it ran a governing experiment that drew national attention. Voters approved incorporating the city in May 2008, about eighty eight percent in favor, partly to avoid being annexed by San Antonio.…
The freeway and the town are recent. Human life on this riverbank is not. Archaeological findings show that people have lived in the Von Ormy area for an estimated eight thousand years, long before any road or rail…
You're driving through Von Ormy, Texas, a town with a name that sounds like royalty, and you'd be right. It all started back in 1861 when Enoch Jones built a grand home here, overlooking the Medina River. It was called…
You're driving past the Old Wurzbach Place near Rio Medina. Built in 1906 by H.F. Wurzbach, this home was designed by the rancher himself, who also served as a Medina County Commissioner. Check out those colonial…
You're driving through the Rio Medina area, passing through the historic Haby Settlement. In the 1840s, families from Alsace, France, like the Habys and Becks, arrived in Texas, seeking land to farm. They settled here…
You're driving past the Enoch Jones Farmstead, also known as the "Castle on the Medina." Enoch Jones, a nationally known engineer from Ohio, purchased this land in 1837, though he didn't permanently move to Texas until…
In 1913, town founder Carl Kurz sank a bore looking for artesian water and hit oil instead. That accident opened the Somerset field, which ran south toward Pleasanton and was called the largest known shallow field in…
Somerset (Somerset, TX) placed on the 4A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Josiah Gonzales (0.478 avg).
Somerset carries a Kentucky name. In 1848, Baptist families from Somerset, Kentucky, started a settlement about three miles south of here, in what is now Atascosa County. That first village is remembered as Old…
You're driving past what used to be Bexar, Texas, also known as La Colorada. It started in 1854 when John Kinney settled here. By the 1880s, the Kinney family was mining coal, hauling it to San Antonio by ox-cart. The…
You're driving southwest of San Antonio, and right here is Somerset. This town got its start in 1909 when the First Townsite Company laid out the land along the Artesian Belt Railroad. But the real boom came in 1913,…
Oil grabbed the headlines, but many Somerset families lived off the soil. During the 1920s, local farmers turned away from cotton toward dryland fruit and vegetable farming, the kind of small-scale produce raising known…
Mann’s Crossing is at the intersection of Old Pearsall Road and the Medina River in southwest Bexar County. It is named after the Mann family who immigrated to Texas from Alsace-Lorraine as part of the original Henri…
Brennan (San Antonio, TX) placed on the 6A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Antonio Nunez (0.512 avg, 1 HR); Drew Martinez (3 HR).
You're driving past the site of the 'Battle' of Adams Hill, a Civil War confrontation that ended without a single shot fired. In May of 1861, Confederate forces under Earl Van Dorn faced off against Union troops led by…
Several Texas highways carry an old honorary name, the Jefferson Davis Highway. It grew out of a plan conceived in nineteen thirteen and promoted by the United Daughters of the Confederacy: a coast to coast road named…
You're driving past the site of Old Rock Baptist Church, a place with roots stretching back to 1857. Originally organized as Medina Baptist Church near Macdona, services were held in homes and schoolhouses until members…
You're driving past Devine Evergreen Cemetery. This quiet resting place holds the stories of early settlers who met violent ends on the Texas frontier. Look for the graves of Elisha Whitley and Henry McCray, killed by…
You're driving through Devine, and right here is the site of Devine Lodge, No. 590, chartered by the Masons way back on December 12, 1884. They first gathered upstairs in Josh Herring's general store. John Redus, a key…
The Texas Hill Country, especially towns like Fredericksburg and New Braunfels, carries a distinct German accent, even now. In the mid-1800s, waves of German immigrants, often fleeing economic hardship or political…
You're driving past the Ruiz-Herrera Cemetery, a final resting place for some real Texas heroes. It started in the 1840s and is still used today by the families who founded this area. Look for the graves of Francisco…
As you drive through Devine, you're traveling over ground that only turned green because engineers went and got the water. The town itself was laid out in 1881, when the International-Great Northern pushed its rails…
Devine's farm boom didn't fall out of the sky — it came down a canal. The town started in 1881, when the railroad running from San Antonio toward Laredo reached this spot in southeast Medina County, and it took its name…
Devine, Texas, owes its name to Judge Thomas Jefferson Devine, a prominent figure in the area back in the late 19th century. He was a respected jurist, and when the International & Great Northern Railroad came through…
You're driving past Rambie-Lewis Family Cemetery. This family cemetery, consisting of three graves, is a physical reminder of the hardships faced by 19th century pioneer families. Aaron Rambie, a Pennsylvania native who…
You're driving through Medina County, a place that's been on maps for centuries. Long before Texas was Texas, Spain ruled a vast empire, and they were always looking north of the Rio Grande. From the 1500s through the…
You're driving through Devine, Texas, a town born from the rumble of a railroad in 1881. <break time="400ms"/> The International-Great Northern Railroad pushed its tracks south from San Antonio, and right here, a new…
Jay (San Antonio, TX) placed on the 5A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Daniel Rodriguez (3 HR).
The 737th Training Group at Lackland Air Force Base provides Basic Military Training for all enlisted people entering the USAF, Air Force Reserve, and Air National Guard. The training is organized into nine basic…
The State Highway One Fifty One bridge at Westover Hills, in Bexar County, is the Specialist Dane Balcon Memorial Bridge. From an early age, Dane Balcon dreamed of serving his country. In two thousand two, at Sand Creek…
The water that transformed Devine's farms came from an engineering marvel about 30 miles north. Completed in 1912, Medina Dam stretched 1,580 feet long and rose 164 feet high, holding roughly 292,000 cubic yards of…
Devine was almost called Nicksville. John L. Nicks was the first known settler, running a trading post and stagecoach stop a couple of miles west of the modern town. He served as postmaster, storekeeper, and justice of…
For its first decades, Devine ran on cotton. That changed in 1915, when the Medina Irrigation Company began delivering gravity-flow water from distant Medina Lake to the fields below the Balcones Escarpment. With…
You're driving through Devine, and right here is the site of the First Baptist Church, organized way back in 1882. It was the very first church established in town, starting with 35 members who met under a big oak tree…
You're driving past the town of Devine, named for Judge Thomas J. Devine. He came to Texas from Nova Scotia way back in 1843. By 1861, he was on the Texas Secession Convention's Public Safety Committee, tasked with…
You're driving past the site of Stroud's Blacksmith Shop in Devine. In 1903, Joe Stroud arrived here from Bigfoot, continuing the blacksmithing trade he learned from his father. Stroud became famous across the Southwest…
When oil was struck here in 1913, it wasn't a gusher that made headlines around the world. Carl Kurz wasn't even looking for oil — he was drilling for artesian water. What he found was something different: oil sitting…
The Somerset oil boom was a direct result of specific geology and the simple engineering it allowed. The oil here wasn't miles down; it sat in shallow porous sand only about 1,400 feet below the surface, and the field…
Somerset's history is marked by significant economic shifts. In 1913, Carl Kurz struck oil while drilling for artesian water, leading to an economic boom. The Somerset oilfield became the largest known shallow field in…
Somerset owes its existence to a railroad that no longer runs — the Artesian Belt. It was chartered on the seventeenth of November, 1908, and it was never really about hauling other people's freight. It was chartered in…
Somerset didn't happen by accident. In 1909, three men — A. M. Pyron, Carl Kurz and Jonas A. Kerr — laid a town out along the right-of-way of the Artesian Belt Railroad, timing it so the new community would have rails…
Warren (San Antonio, TX) placed on the 6A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Joaquin Guerra (4 HR); Alex Garza (0.410 avg, 1 HR).
You're driving past the Schuehle-Saathoff House, a limestone cottage built in 1850 by German immigrant Henry Schuehle. It represents the vernacular building style of early German settlers in Texas. In 1900, S.H.…
You're driving past the site where a San Jacinto veteran met his end. On October 20th, 1838, Moses Lapham, who fought for Texas independence, and three of his men were killed by Indians right around here. The very next…
This highway is part of the Purple Heart Trail, a symbolic trail that runs through all fifty states to honor those killed or wounded in combat while serving in the armed forces. In Texas it started with one road. In two…
This road carries a Blue Star Memorial Highway designation, one of a string of them across Texas. The name comes from a family tradition. When someone in a household was serving in the armed forces, the family displayed…
You're driving through Quihi, a settlement founded way back in 1845 by ten families sent by Henry Castro, a big-deal pioneer. They were the first wave of Alsatian immigrants to this area. Life here was tough, though.…
You're driving past the route of General Woll's Road, built in 1842. To sneak into Texas and capture San Antonio, Mexican troops under General Adrian Woll needed a new path. Colonel Jose Maria Carrasco carved out this…
You're driving past Bethlehem Lutheran Church. The Rev. Christian Oefinger, serving as pastor of the Castroville Lutheran Church, led in founding this congregation in March 1852. The first church building was dedicated…
Southwest Research Institute is one of the world's top centers for engine, fuel, and lubricant research, and the way it does that work is wonderfully brute-force. Spread across the campus are hundreds of test stands,…
Here's something amazing about Southwest Research Institute: it doesn't just build instruments that ride on spacecraft, it actually leads space missions. An SwRI scientist named Alan Stern is the principal investigator…
Tucked into the northwest side of San Antonio is a place that solves problems for a living. Southwest Research Institute was founded in 1947 by an oilman named Tom Slick Jr., and it has grown into one of the oldest and…
At Southwest Research Institute, one whole line of work is setting things on fire on purpose. The institute started the nation's first fire-technology research program back in 1949, and it still runs one of the world's…
You're driving past a route that was once a vital artery for Texas commerce and survival. This was the Chihuahua Trail, an old Indian road first used by Apaches and Comanches. By <say-as interpret-as="date"…
You're driving past a piece of aviation history right now in San Antonio. Back in 1917, this area became known as 'Kelly No. 2,' a major flight training and maintenance hub for the U.S. Army Air Corps. The field was…
Sotomayor (San Antonio, TX) placed on the 6A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Kolaiah Staten (9 HR); Noah Vrzal (8 HR); Wes Guardiola (5 HR); Jude Patino (5 HR); Evan Fine (0.434 avg).
You're driving past the site of a crucial World War II operation, Station X. In 1942, over a thousand civilian volunteers, mostly Texans, were recruited from San Antonio Air Depot for a secret mission. They sailed…
You're driving past the Wiemers Oak, a living piece of Hondo history. It was under this very tree, back in 1854, that German migrant Johann Wiemers and his wife Aalke found their faith. Reverend John Schaper held…
US Highway Ninety through San Antonio's West Side is the Cleto Rodriguez Freeway, named in nineteen ninety one. Rodriguez was born in San Marcos in nineteen twenty three, lost both parents by the time he was nine, and…
You're driving through what used to be called Soldaten Kemp, a historic meeting spot for soldiers and travelers on the old San Antonio Road. By the mid-1800s, German immigrants were settling here. In 1858, Reverend John…
You're cruising through San Antonio, and right here is where a man named John Wesley DeVilbiss laid the groundwork for a whole lot of harmony. He arrived in Texas back in 1842, riding the circuit and ministering to both…
You're driving through San Antonio, near where Reverend John Wesly DeVilbliss, a circuit rider, arrived in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1842</say-as>. He ministered to immigrants and native Texians, promoting…
You're driving past the site of Kelly Air Force Base, a place that played a huge role in American air power. Back in 1917, just before the US entered World War I, this farmland was chosen for a new aviation training…
On Old Applewhite Road, south of San Antonio, a one-lane bridge built in nineteen-seventeen crosses the Medina River. It's been closed to cars since two-thousand-five and folded into the Medina River Greenway, but…
You're driving past the Brummett Cemetery, a resting place for pioneers and descendants of the Texas Revolution. Look for the grave of James Washington Winters, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto, who lived from…
You're driving past Rossville Cemetery, a resting place established by a land grant from a famous Texan. Jose Antonio Navarro, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, transferred land here to his son. In…
You're driving past the Masonic Cemetery in Hondo, opened in 1864 when Junior Warden Rubin Smith was killed by Indians. Freemasons and others in the New Fountain Settlement had already built a stone church-lodge hall…
Honors Cleto L. Rodriguez, WWII Medal of Honor recipient for the February 1945 assault on Manila's Paco Railroad Station. Orphan from San Marcos, raised in San Antonio's west side.
Somewhere near you is the oldest story in Leon Valley, a limestone homestead that grew up piece by piece over the decades. It started around eighteen fifty-eight, when Joseph and Caroline Huebner, immigrants from…
In 1858 Joseph Huebner, an Austrian immigrant who reached Texas about five years earlier, bought 200 acres from the Losoya Survey near Bandera Road. He first raised a tiny one-room limestone hut, roughly twelve feet…
You are now driving through a city that exists because its residents said 'no.' In the boom years after World War II, San Antonio was expanding in every direction, annexing unincorporated land to grow its tax base and…
You're driving through San Antonio, and right here is a marker for Lydia Mendoza, the "Lark of the Border." Born in Houston, she became one of the most famous singers across the Texas-Mexico border and all of Latin…
You're driving through South Texas, perhaps near Bigfoot, and you might be passing the resting place of a San Jacinto veteran. James Washington Winters, Jr., was just 19 when he joined Captain William Ware's company in…
Leon Valley grew up in the 1940s as farm country along Bandera Road, between San Antonio and Helotes, watered by Leon Creek. The name traces to that creek: Leon is Spanish for lion. As San Antonio spread outward after…
The same creeks that stranded stagecoach travelers still behave the same way. Huebner Creek is a tributary of Leon Creek, draining about 12 square miles before passing Leon Valley's 36-acre Huebner-Onion Natural Area.…
This city began in the 1940s as a farming community. It was situated along Bandera Road, nestled between Helotes and San Antonio. The residents valued their independence. In 1952, they took a significant step by filing…
You're driving through San Antonio on land that's seen centuries of history. This area, once home to Native Americans, was part of Spanish and Mexican land grants, and even a route for El Camino Real. The earliest grant…
You're driving through Bigfoot, Texas, a community named for a legendary Texas frontiersman. In 1883, James Connally secured a post office for this spot, then known as Connally's Store. He decided to rename it Bigfoot,…
You're driving through Atascosa County, passing the site of what was once Rossville. This was the very first Scottish community in all of southwest Texas. It all started in 1873 when brothers William and John Ross, who…
You're driving past the Zion Lutheran Church, a beautiful example of Carpenter Gothic architecture right here in Helotes. Built in 1906, this church wasn't constructed by professional builders, but by the very farmers…
You're driving past the Zion Lutheran Church and Cemetery in Helotes. The first burial here wasn't for a church member, but for Anton Gugger, a German immigrant laid to rest on his own farmland back in 1881. It wasn't…
You're driving through Leon Valley, just northwest of San Antonio, and you might be passing the site of a true Texas music landmark. Back in 1946, this was the Texas Star Inn, a beer joint and a hangout for…
You're driving past the site of the Huebner-Onion Homestead, a vital stop on the San Antonio to Bandera Stage Line back in the 1800s. Joseph Huebner built his limestone home and stagecoach stop here in 1858, offering…
You're driving past the site of the Medina Dam, completed in 1912. It was the largest dam in Texas and fourth largest in the U.S. at the time, built with massive concrete and limestone boulders. Sadly, its visionary…
Henri Castro, who colonized this area in the 1840s, envisioned irrigated farms along the Medina River. The project was delayed, however, until after the turn of the century, when Dr. Fred Stark Pearson, an…
Prepare to be amazed! You're approaching Medina Dam, a testament to early 20th-century engineering that tamed the Medina River. Built between 1911 and 1912 by the Medina Irrigation Company, this hollow-masonry dam was…
You're driving past the site of Mountain Valley, a Mormon settlement that vanished beneath the waters of Medina Lake. In 1854, sixteen families, led by Lyman Wight, built their homes and mills here. But just four years…
You're driving through Rossville, past the site of the Sand Branch Baptist Church. It all began under a tree near here on August 27th, 1882, with just twelve members. Their first pastor was Elder C.B. Hukill. For a…
You're driving through Atascosa County, passing the site of a man who saw major Texas history unfold. Edward Brown fought in the Texas Revolution and later in the U.S.-Mexico War. He was even captured by Mexican forces…
You're driving through Bigfoot, Texas, the hometown of William Carvin Winters. He arrived in Texas back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1834</say-as>, fought and was wounded at the Battle of San Jacinto, the…
You're driving past the historic Anchorage Cemetery, a place named by a former sea captain! In 1882, William and Mary Allen Stiggins, along with their daughter Mary Jane and her fiancé Thomas Whittet, arrived here from…
You're driving past land once granted to Mission San Jose, but left unsettled until the 1820s. In 1828, Jose Antonio Navarro, a key figure in San Antonio and a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, asked the…
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