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Selma, Texas

Everything Selma is known for

3 songs mention this city

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Music in Selma

Songs About Selma

21 Days
Cory Morrow
52%
"And I'm thinking about a girl in Selma"
Velma from Selma
Augie Meyers
30%
Guitar Town
Steve Earle
5%
"There's a speed trap up ahead in Selma Town"

Artists From Selma

No artists from Selma in the database yet.

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Rivers & Roads in Song near Selma

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Selma.

Interstate 35 45 songs US Route 90 9 songs Interstate 10 36 songs San Antonio River 2 songs Guadalupe River 18 songs Chisholm Trail 8 songs

History of Selma

The 1852 Harrison House Still Standing on Cibolo Creek RoadyGoat

Tucked on a 12-acre site along Cibolo Creek at 14997 Evans Road sits one of only two original structures left from old Selma: the John S. Harrison House. The one-story home was built in 1852 by John and Martha Harrison, the same couple behind the town's stagecoach stop and its first post office, with a detailed full-width porch added in 1905. For a town that has otherwise been almost entirely paved over by interstate-era growth, the house is a rare survivor, the actual residence where Selma's founding postmaster lived while the mail and the stagecoaches were just getting organized. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006 and earned state archeological recognition, and after years of vandalism and decay it was rescued from demolition; preservation groups list it among Texas sites successfully saved. The City of Selma now owns it and has worked to restore it as the centerpiece of a historic park, so the oldest chapter of the town didn't vanish under the asphalt after all. (Source: Preservation Texas; National Register of Historic Places.)

RoadyGoat →

The Perfect Speed Trap RoadyGoat

For a stretch in the 1970s, this two-mile sliver of highway was one of the most feared spots in Texas for a heavy right foot. Selma had quietly incorporated in 1964 on a petition signed by just 29 people, several of them related, drawing city limits that ran only about two miles long and never more than a thousand feet from the road, partly to avoid being annexed by neighboring Live Oak. With almost no tax base, the new town leaned hard on one asset: the traffic pouring down Interstate 35. Northbound drivers crested a long hill and rolled straight into radar waiting under the Loop 1604 bridge at the bottom. By one estimate the town was pulling in roughly 168,000 dollars a year in fines, more than 800 dollars for every resident. In 1974 Texas Monthly ran a feature calling it the perfect speed trap. The state finally answered with House Bill 550 in 1973, barring towns under 5,000 people from running radar on interstates. Even Steve Earle's Guitar Town name-drops a Selma speed trap, though which Selma he meant is still argued. (Source: Texas Monthly; Wikipedia.)

RoadyGoat →

The Stagecoach Crossroads RoadyGoat

Imagine this busy highway is just a dusty, rutted track. It is the 1850s, and you have been traveling for hours by stagecoach out of San Antonio. Up ahead is a welcome sight: the Harrison and Brown stage stop, built here in 1849 to handle passengers and freight on the San Antonio to Austin run. John Harrison and his wife Martha arrived in 1852, built their home down by Cibolo Creek, and he became Selma's first postmaster when the office opened in 1856. He was also part owner of the Harrison and McCulloch stage line that carried the mail through town. For the isolated farmers out here, the arrival of the coach was a genuine event, bringing mail, supplies and news from the outside world. The Harrison house still stands by the creek and is on the National Register, and the old stop has been restored and rechristened the Selma Stage Stop, with a visitor center and a park beside it, a quiet witness to when this was the most important crossroads for miles around.

RoadyGoat →

Harrison, John Sobiesky Koontz

1836

John Sobiesky Koontz Harrison, partner in the Harrison & McCulloch Stage Lines which ran from Indianola and Galveston to Central Texas as far back as the mid-1840s, was born on August 20, 1818, in Kingston, Roane County, Tennessee. His parents were Dr. Benjamin and Elizabeth (Koontz) Harrison. His grandfather, John Koontz, was a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates and had served as a colonel in the War of 1812. His father died when he was five years old, and, with his mother and his siblings, Harrison moved to La Porte County, Indiana, in 1833. His mother remained in Indiana and was listed as a hotel keeper in the 1850 census of Porter County. John S. Harrison probably arrived in Texas around 1836. His two older brothers, Achilles Leonidas and Erasmus Darwin Harrison had left for Texas sometime before John. Erasmus served with James W. Fannin, Jr. , and was killed at the Goliad Massacre in March 1836. John's oldest brother, Achilles, a second lieutenant in the Army of the Republic of Texas , died in the Houston area about 1840. John Harrison served in Captain Burnett's Company, First Regiment, First Brigade, in the Texas Army Volunteers, commanded by Col. Edwin Morehouse , through the year 1836. In 1839 Harrison resided in Fort Bend County and received a second class certificate for 320 acres. On October 31, 1845, he filed a petition with the probate court at Conroe, Montgomery County, Texas for the estates of his brothers. Erasmus Harrison had received 640 acres in Donation Land Certificate #786 dated January 28, 1839, and 1,920 acres for service from December 25, 1835, to March 27, 1836, in Bounty Land Warrant #707. John Harrison married Martha Jane E. McCulloch Graves. She was born on September 8, 1828, in Alabama and was the daughter of William G. and Margery (Lee) McCulloch. Martha Jane had a daughter from her first marriage, and the Harrisons eventually had four children of their own. John went into the stage line business with his brother-in-law, William H. McCulloch , Martha Jane's older brother, and formed the Harrison & McCulloch Stage Line. By 1848 the Harrisons possibly lived in Victoria, Texas, as John Harrison advertised his operation of the Victoria Hotel on May 4, 1848, and was noted as "one of the proprietors of the San Antonio and Port Lavaca Stage Line." In November 1848 Harrison & McCulloch advertised the newly-established "Line of Stages" from Indian Point to Victoria. In 1849 Harrison was also in partnership with Dr. Caleb S. Brown out of Gonzales, Texas, as Harrison & Brown, and advertised a stage line between San Antonio and Port Lavaca (probably the same line that he promoted as proprietor of the Victoria Hotel). They dissolved their partnership, however, on June 17, 1850. Harrison & McCulloch began their third postal route in New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas, by 1851; the United States Post Office had awarded them the contract for Route 6285 on May 11, 1850. This route, combined with their other two routes 6154 and 6155, made up a continuous loop through the central "heart" of Texas-from Austin to San Antonio to Port Lavaca back up through Victoria to Gonzales and back to New Braunfels. The Harrison family was listed in the 1850 Comal County census records and lived in the New Braunfels area. In 1852 the Harrisons moved from New Braunfels to Cibolo (later to be renamed Selma) and bought a 127-acre farm from sections of properties owned by Johannes Kaderli, Henry Kempel, and Adam Wuest. Harrison established Selma's first post office when he became the postmaster on June 21, 1852, and served a two-year term until July 15, 1854. He and his family moved from Selma, and they sold their farm to Wilhelm Geier and Martin Schmid in 1854. By 1858 they were living in Pleasanton, Atascosa County, Texas, where Harrison was listed in the 1860 census records as a "stockraiser." In 1861 he was a private in the command of Capt. Edward Walker of the Mounted Minutemen of Atascosa County where he enlisted

Tsha Handbook →

Harrison and McCulloch Stage Stop

1848

HARRISON AND McCULLOCH STAGE STOP THE HARRISON AND McCULLOCH STAGE LINE BEGAN RUNNING STAGECOACHES FROM THE TEXAS COAST TO CENTRAL TEXAS AS EARLY AS 1848. THE LINE WAS A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN BROTHERS-IN-LAW, JOHN S. HARRISON (1818-1864) AND WILLIAM McCULLOCH (1819-c.1854), AFTER DISSOLVING THEIR PARTNERSHIP WITH DR. CALEB S. BROWN OF GONZALES (HARRISON & BROWN STAGE LINE) IN 1850. THEIR STAGE LINE WAS PART OF A NETWORK OF COMPETING STAGE LINES AND “STAR ROUTES” THAT CONTRACTED WITH THE UNITED STATES POST OFFICE DELIVERING TRAVELERS AND MAIL THROUGHOUT CENTRAL TEXAS. STAR ROUTES 6285, 6154 AND 6155 RAN FROM INDIANOLA, PORT LAVACA AND GALVESTON TO NEW BRAUNFELS AND AUSTIN AND BACK. JOHN S. HARRISON ALSO OWNED THE VICTORIA HOTEL IN VICTORIA WHERE HE HOUSED HIS STAGE PASSENGERS OVERNIGHT ON THEIR WAY INLAND. IN 1852, HARRISON MOVED TO SELMA, MAKING IT HIS HOME. HIS HOUSE WAS LISTED ON THE NATIONAL REGISTER OF HISTORIC PLACES IN 2006 AND DECLARED A STATE ARCHEOLOGICAL LANDMARK IN 2009. HARRISON WAS THE FIRST POSTMASTER OF SELMA AND HELD THAT POSITION FOR TWO YEARS. THE SELMA STAGE STOP, AS IT IS KNOWN TODAY, WAS ONE OF THE STOPS ON HARRISON & McCULLOCH’S STAR ROUTE 6285 THAT RAN FROM AUSTIN TO SAN ANTONIO. IN 1852, THE ROUTE TOOK 18 HOURS TO COMPLETE, LEAVING AUSTIN AT 3 AM AND TRAVELING THE OLD POST ROAD AND SECTIONS OF EL CAMINO REAL DE LOS TEJAS THROUGH OPEN PRAIRIE TO MANCHAC SPRING, SAN MARCOS, BONITO, NEW BRAUNFELS AND SELMA, ARRIVING IN SAN ANTONIO AT 9 PM THAT NIGHT. THE SELMA STAGE STOP IS A PRIME EXAMPLE OF “LIMECRETE CONSTRUCTION,” A PROCESS USING WOODEN FORMS AND “SLIP,” A MIXTURE MADE FROM SAND AND PEBBLES FOUND IN THE NEARBY RÍO CIBOLO. SHARDS OF WOOD AND CORNCOBS WERE FORCED INTO THE DRYING SLIP FOR ADDED STRENGTH.

Historical Marker →

Universal City, TX

1929

Universal City is located across the Union Pacific Railroad tracks from the main gate of Randolph Air Force Base in northeast Bexar County. Covering 5.7 square miles, the city is enclosed by Randolph and the cities of Converse, Live Oak, Selma, and Schertz. The genesis of Universal City occurred when three San Antonio doctors, Henry H. Ogilvie (1885–1945), Witten B. Russ (1874–1964), and Samuel P. Cunningham (1876–1930), bought farmland in late 1929 in speculation that the future military airfield across the tracks would attract businesses and homeowners. Developer Aubrey Milner named the tract Universal City in 1931 to recognize what he hoped would be the universal importance of the neighboring airfield. Randolph Field opened on October 25, 1931, and the first business to open across the railroad tracks was a service station in 1932. Another early business was Randolph Cleaners (then called Post Tailors), which was still in operation in 2013. Pat Booker Road (State Highway 218), which is the main street of Universal City and connects Interstate 35 to the main gate of Randolph AFB, was built in 1935 and named a year later in honor of Air Corps captain and San Antonio native Francis P. “Pat” Booker, a pilot who served at Randolph and was later killed in an airplane crash at Maxwell Field, Alabama. The first restaurant, Beaty's, opened in 1939. Until the late 1950s the town grew slowly; the population after twenty-five years was only a few hundred. The catalyst that fueled Universal City’s tremendous growth was when Headquarters, Air Training Command moved from Scott Air Force Base, Illinois, to Randolph in 1957. The influx of officers and enlisted could not be absorbed by on-base housing, as it had since World War II . Recognizing this, the owner of Acme Lumber Company, Johnnie Chuoke, began in late 1957 Rose Garden, the first profitable housing development of Universal City. Soon other builders followed, and the race was on. Some citizens were concerned that burgeoning San Antonio would soon attempt to annex unincorporated Universal City, so in March 1960 voters approved incorporation. The first mayor, Franklin Bless, along with five aldermen were elected on June 4, 1960, and the first city council meeting was held two days later. On September 6, 1960, the city council officially adopted the Texas code that made it a general law city. After months of holding meetings wherever space could be found, the city government occupied its new permanent city hall in March 1962. Small police and fire stations were added to the city hall later to create a municipal building. Also in 1962 the city’s first church, Universal City Methodist, was organized, and construction began on a building. Although the town was already growing rapidly, the transfer of the Air Force Military Personnel function from the Pentagon to Randolph, beginning in June 1963 and continuing over the next few years, accelerated the growth. In January 1964 the city got its first bank, and in 1965 its first shopping center Randolph Plaza opened, featuring a Piggly Wiggly supermarket. After a decade of having just a rural post office, Universal City received a full-fledged U. S. post office in 1970. Also in 1970 the town gained its own newspaper, the Weekly Herald (the newspaper relocated in 1998), and an H-E-B supermarket opened on the edge of town. McDonald’s arrived in Universal City in January 1972. A Sears catalog store opened later in the year. At the general election on April 1, 1972, citizens chose to be governed under a home rule charter, which provided for a council-manager form of city government . The city’s first school, Rose Garden Elementary, opened in 1960 and was followed by Northview Elementary, which opened in 1967 but later closed. Coronado Village Elementary School opened in 1971, Kitty Hawk Junior High (now Middle School) in 1976, and Olympia Elementary in 1980. The newest and probably last school within the city limits, Salinas Elementary, opened in

Tsha Handbook →

Building 100 "Taj Mahal"

1928

In 1928 the San Antonio Airport Company purchased 2300 acres of land near the city and donated it to the United States Army Air Corps for development of a consolidated flight training facility. Called "the West Point of the air", Randolph Field was dedicated June 20, 1930. One month later, construction was begun on an administration building, designated as Building 100. Because of the structure's exotic appearance, student flyers nicknamed it "The Taj Mahal" soon after its completion in October 1931. With its height and location, the building dominated Randolph Field and the surrounding countryside. It was also a prominent feature in several motion pictures filmed here. To many Americans, "The Taj Mahal" came to symbolized military aviation at a time when air power was becoming vital to military strength. Building 100 was designed by San Antonio architect Atlee B. Ayres. Its unusual 170-foot tower conceals a 500,000-gallon water storage tank. A powerful beacon atop the tower can be seen by aircraft up to fifty miles away. The building also contains an 1100-seat movie theater. Its administrative offices now (1975) house the United States Air Force. (1975)

Historical Marker → · 4.0 mi away

Davenport Cemetery

1851

William Davenport was born in 1820 in Saltville Township, Virginia. His family later lived in Kentucky before settling in present-day Kaufman County, Texas in 1843. There William met and married Mary Ware, daughter of Texas Revolutionary veteran William Ware. William and Mary built a home south of Cibolo Creek soon after purchasing land here in 1851, part of the Vicente Micheli Survey. When Mary died the following year, William buried her near their home, establishing a community burial ground. In 1853, William married Nancy D. Young, whose father John was a veteran of the War of 1812 and was also later buried in Davenport Cemetery.
 William Davenport was a leader in the community of Selma. William, Robert Evans and John C. Miller established the first Selma school in 1859, furnishing funds, supplies and labor to build a one-room schoolhouse where William's children were among the first pupils. William, a Mason, also helped build a two-story limestone combination schoolhouse, church and Masonic hall in Selma in 1872. William was captain of a local militia that organized to protect settlers from Indian attacks. He was also an enterprising rancher with land in Bexar, Comal, Bandera and Kerr counties.
 The International and Great Northern Railway established Davenport Station (later Bracken) near the ranch in the 1880s, and a Davenport School operated nearby in Comal County. William's land extended to the present Randolph Air Force Base, and an auxiliary runway named Davenport Field was later located near the cemetery. Captain William Davenport died in 1901 and is buried here along with other respected pioneers. Nancy died in 1934 and was the last to be buried in Davenport Cemetery. Historic Texas Cemetery - 2004

Historical Marker →

Natural Bridge Caverns

1960

The largest commercial caverns in Texas, discovered in 1960 by college students. Named for the 60-foot natural limestone bridge at the entrance.

Natural Landmark → · 7.5 mi away

Things to Do in Selma

historical 15.2 mi away
The Alamo

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…
historical 17.1 mi away
Gruene Hall

Gruene Hall opened in 1878 and has never closed its doors making it the oldest continuously operating dance hall in Texas. The wooden floor is scuffed smooth…
historical 18.3 mi away
The Alamo

Remember the Alamo. The 1836 last stand that became Texas' most sacred site.
nature 7.5 mi away
Bracken Cave

The largest bat colony on earth lives in this single sinkhole outside San Antonio -- somewhere between fifteen and twenty million Mexican free-tailed bats…
nature 14.1 mi away
Comal Springs

Comal Springs in New Braunfels is the largest spring system in Texas -- more than two hundred and fifty individual vents pouring out three hundred million…
historical 16.4 mi away
Gruene Hall

Texas' oldest dance hall (1878). Still hosts live music every night.
historical 16.5 mi away
Where George Strait Got His Start

Before George Strait was the King of Country he was a young singer playing regular gigs at Gruene Hall in the 1970s and 80s. The tiny dance hall with no air…
quirky 16.5 mi away
The Kayaker Who Saved a Ghost Town

In 1974 developers had plans to bulldoze what was left of Gruene and build suburban homes. Then a University of Texas architecture student named Chip Kaufman…

Everything Near Selma

1212 stories, landmarks & places within ~20 miles — the nearest 200 are listed here — the same local lore RoadyGoat plays as you drive through.

  • Harrison, John Sobiesky Koontz · Tsha Handbook

    John Sobiesky Koontz Harrison, partner in the Harrison & McCulloch Stage Lines which ran from Indianola and Galveston to Central Texas as far back as the mid-1840s, was born on August 20, 1818, in Kingston, Roane…

  • The 1852 Harrison House Still Standing on Cibolo Creek · 0.3 mi

    Tucked on a 12-acre site along Cibolo Creek at 14997 Evans Road sits one of only two original structures left from old Selma: the John S. Harrison House. The one-story home was built in 1852 by John and Martha Harrison,…

  • The Perfect Speed Trap · 0.6 mi

    For a stretch in the 1970s, this two-mile sliver of highway was one of the most feared spots in Texas for a heavy right foot. Selma had quietly incorporated in 1964 on a petition signed by just 29 people, several of…

  • The Stagecoach Crossroads · 0.6 mi

    Imagine this busy highway is just a dusty, rutted track. It is the 1850s, and you have been traveling for hours by stagecoach out of San Antonio. Up ahead is a welcome sight: the Harrison and Brown stage stop, built…

  • And They're Off! The Race that Remade Selma · 0.6 mi

    For 150 years, Selma was a quiet little town. Then, in 1995, came the sound of thundering hooves. That was the year Retama Park, a Class 1 horse racing track, opened its doors. It was a huge gamble, a multi-million…

  • The Concrete River That Built a City · 0.6 mi

    The highway you’re driving on, Interstate 35, is more than just a road—it’s the single most important piece of engineering in Selma’s modern history. Think of it as a river of concrete. For decades after it was built,…

  • Selma, TX · 0.6 mi

    The town was famous as a speed trap, as referenced in the Steve Earle song 'Guitar Town'. Texas Monthly published a feature on Selma in 1974, describing it as 'the perfect speed trap'.

  • A German Name on a Texas Crossroads · 0.6 mi

    The little city wrapped around the Interstate here doesn't take its name from Selma, Alabama, the way a lot of travelers assume. Selma, Texas, was first settled around 1847 by immigrant families from several European…

  • Retama Park and the Long Bet That Never Paid Off · 0.6 mi

    The grandstand rising off the access road here is Retama Park, the horse-racing track that opened with its first live race on April 7, 1995, about a year and a half behind schedule. The name comes from the retama, a…

  • From 100 People to a Retail Corridor · 0.6 mi

    Few places in Texas have flipped from ghost town to boomtown as sharply as Selma. After its 1896 peak near 600 people, the town withered; the post office shut in 1906, and by 1940 Selma reported a church, a school,…

  • The Surgeon's Country Retreat · 0.6 mi

    One of Selma's founders held the mail, the road and the horses. John S. Harrison and his wife Martha Jane came to this spot on Cibolo Creek in 1852 and built a stone house that is still standing today, on the National…

  • Harrison and McCulloch Stage Stop · 0.6 mi · Historical Marker

    HARRISON AND McCULLOCH STAGE STOP THE HARRISON AND McCULLOCH STAGE LINE BEGAN RUNNING STAGECOACHES FROM THE TEXAS COAST TO CENTRAL TEXAS AS EARLY AS 1848. THE LINE WAS A PARTNERSHIP BETWEEN BROTHERS-IN-LAW, JOHN S.…

Show all 200 nearby places
  • The Buffalo in the Creek's Name · 0.6 mi

    The waterway threading through Selma is Cibolo Creek, and its name carries a memory of the animals that once shaped this whole region. Cibolo comes from a Native term, absorbed into Spanish, meaning buffalo or bison,…

  • The Stage Stop on the San Antonio-Austin Run · 0.7 mi

    Before the freeway, before the outlet malls, this crossroads was a place where tired horses got swapped and dusty passengers stretched their legs. Around 1849 to 1850 the Harrison and McCulloch stage stop was built here…

  • Digging Up the Stage Stop · 0.7 mi

    When Selma decided to turn its surviving stagecoach stop and old post office into the heart of a historic park, the city didn't just sand the floors, it called in archaeologists. In 2000 the Center for Archaeological…

  • The City-Owned Course With 50-Foot Drops · 1.1 mi

    At 12900 Mount Olympus you'll find something unusual for a flat-sounding suburb: a golf course with genuine elevation. Olympia Hills Golf & Event Center opened in February 2000 and is owned and run by the City of…

  • Site of Geier and Schmid Farm · 1.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Geier and Schmid farm, a testament to German immigration and early Texas settlement. Wilhelm Geier, his wife Theodora, and daughter Johanna arrived in Texas in <say-as…

  • Davenport Cemetery · 1.4 mi · Historical Marker

    William Davenport was born in 1820 in Saltville Township, Virginia. His family later lived in Kentucky before settling in present-day Kaufman County, Texas in 1843. There William met and married Mary Ware, daughter of…

  • The Interchange That Built a City · 1.9 mi

    You're driving in a city whose shape was set by civil engineering. The heart of Live Oak isn't a traditional downtown square; it's the interchange where Interstate 35 meets Loop 1604. Live Oak incorporated in 1960 as a…

  • The Tree That Built a Town · 1.9 mi

    Before I-35 and Loop 1604 crossed out here, this was live oak country northeast of San Antonio, thirteen miles out from downtown, rolling and shaded and thick with the trees that gave the place its name. German farming…

  • The Hardware Store That Became the Town's Living Room · 1.9 mi

    For years the city's main gathering hall was, of all things, a former hardware store. The Live Oak Civic Center at 8101 Pat Booker Road started life as a Handy Dan Lumber store, one of a regional chain of…

  • Named for the Trees the Aldermen Met Under · 2.0 mi

    The suburb you're rolling into took its name from the trees overhead. Back when this was farm and ranch country northeast of San Antonio, a cluster of German families decided to incorporate their own town rather than be…

  • The City Run Out of the Friesenhahns' Living Rooms · 2.0 mi

    Live Oak incorporated in 1960 for one main reason: to keep from being annexed into San Antonio, so residents would have a real voice in their own affairs. What they built in those first years was about as bootstrap as a…

  • The Suburb That Tripled in a Decade · 2.0 mi

    Live Oak sits in the orbit of Randolph Air Force Base, in the band of fast-growing northeast San Antonio suburbs that filled in alongside Schertz, Universal City, Selma and Converse as the metro pushed outward. The…

  • Robert B. Evans Home · 2.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising through San Antonio, and just ahead is the Robert B. Evans Home, built way back in 1882. Look for the old smokehouse on the east side, dating all the way back to 1865. Robert Evans himself came to Texas…

  • The Fastest Quarter-Miler in San Antonio Became Its Mayor · 2.1 mi

    Live Oak's second mayor came out of the same family that helped name the town, and before he ran the city he could simply outrun almost anyone. Elton Ottmar Friesenhahn, called Fritz, was born in 1924 on the family farm…

  • The Main Street Named for a Lost Aviator · 2.1 mi

    The busy commercial spine you're driving, Pat Booker Road, carries the name of an aviator who never came home. Officially State Highway 218, the road was built in 1935 to connect the highway from San Antonio straight to…

  • Universal City, TX · 2.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Universal City is located across the Union Pacific Railroad tracks from the main gate of Randolph Air Force Base in northeast Bexar County. Covering 5.7 square miles, the city is enclosed by Randolph and the cities of…

  • Living Next to the 'Taj Mahal' · 2.5 mi

    From almost anywhere in Universal City, you can feel the presence of its powerful neighbor. Randolph Air Force Base isn't just an employer; it's a landmark. Its most famous feature is the main administration building,…

  • A Texas Town That Borrowed Kitty Hawk · 2.5 mi

    More than a thousand miles from the North Carolina dunes where the Wright brothers first flew, Universal City planted a piece of Kitty Hawk in the Texas Hill Country. Living in the shadow of an Air Force pilot-training…

  • Universal City, TX · 2.5 mi

    The earliest portion of what would later become Universal City, Texas, was platted on January 30, 1931. The city was later incorporated as a home-rule city on April 20, 1960.

  • Edens Cemetery · 2.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Edens Cemetery, the final resting place for a pioneering Texas family. It all began in 1856 when Mary Edens was buried here, marking the start of this small family graveyard. Her family,…

  • Before the Subdivisions, This Was Ranch Land · 2.8 mi

    Long before the strip centers and subdivisions, this rolling ground at the northeast edge of Bexar County was German farm and ranch country. The original settler families carried names you can still find on the old…

  • How Live Oak Split From Selma and Named Itself · 2.8 mi

    Live Oak began as a small farming and ranching community in northeastern Bexar County, thirteen miles northeast of downtown San Antonio near what is now the Interstate 35 and Loop 1604 interchange. Its early settlers…

  • The West Point of the Air Next Door · 2.9 mi

    You can't understand Schertz without understanding its powerful next-door neighbor: Randolph Air Force Base. When it opened in 1930, it was the largest and most advanced air training facility in the world, a…

  • From Cotton Fields to Concrete Giants · 2.9 mi

    As you drive along Interstate 35, look at the enormous warehouses that dominate the landscape. These buildings tell the STEM story of modern Schertz. For over a century this land grew cotton; today its value is…

  • Schertz, TX · 2.9 mi

    Schertz, Texas, while now a bustling suburb, owes much of its character to its agricultural roots, particularly its long association with cotton farming. The fertile land surrounding Cibolo Creek, combined with a…

  • Schertz · 2.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Schertz, a town that owes its start to German immigrants arriving in the 1840s, looking for good farmland. This community, known then as Cibolo Pit and Cutoff, really took off when the railroad…

  • The Tower That Secretly Holds Half a Million Gallons · 3.0 mi

    Just inside the gate of the airbase next door stands one of the cleverest pieces of engineering camouflage in Texas. Building 100, the headquarters everyone calls the Taj Mahal, was finished in 1931 with a 170-foot…

  • Named for the Man Choosing the Name · 3.0 mi

    The field that gave this town its reason to exist carries the name of a pilot who never saw it built, and who died while helping pick what to call it. Captain William Millican Randolph was an Austin native and a…

  • A City Built Like a Wheel, Read From the Air · 3.0 mi

    Universal City grew up beside one of the most deliberately designed places in Texas, a base laid out to be admired from a cockpit. In 1927, Lt. Harold Clark, an architect by training, sketched an idea on dispatch paper:…

  • The Town Named for a Hope · 3.0 mi

    The town you're rolling into was a real-estate bet on an airfield that hadn't opened yet. In late 1929, three San Antonio physicians, Henry H. Ogilvie, Witten B. Russ, and Samuel P. Cunningham, bought farmland across…

  • When Hollywood Filmed the West Point of the Air · 3.0 mi

    The airfield beside Universal City was so striking that Hollywood built a movie around it. In the spring of 1934, an MGM crew came to Randolph Field to shoot West Point of the Air, a drama about Army Air Corps flight…

  • Golf Range to Drive-In to Hospital, All on One Plot · 3.1 mi

    The big hospital campus on Judson Road has had three very different lives, and each one tells you something about how fast this suburb changed. According to longtime city accounts, the land where Methodist Hospital…

  • Cibolo Pit, Then Cut Off, Then Schertz · 3.2 mi

    The town you're rolling into has worn three names. It started as Cibolo Pit, for a gravel pit and water well dug beside the new railroad here in southwestern Guadalupe County. Then it became Cut Off, because whenever…

  • Where Steve Earle Got His First Guitar · 3.2 mi

    The hard-bitten alt-country songwriter Steve Earle, the man behind Guitar Town and Copperhead Road, grew up right here in Schertz, about 17 miles north of San Antonio. Born on an Army post in Virginia in 1955 where his…

  • From Alsace to the Cibolo Bottoms · 3.2 mi

    Before this was a San Antonio suburb, it was German-speaking farm country, and the family that gave the town its name had crossed an ocean to get here. Joseph and Anna Schertz left Alsace-Lorraine in 1843; Anna and a…

  • The Town With an Official Sweetheart · 3.2 mi

    Most towns have a festival; Schertz has a Sweetheart. Every May the city crowns a Schertz Sweetheart, a young ambassador chosen through the Sweetheart Pageant who then represents the town through the year, riding in…

  • The World's Largest Bat Colony · 3.4 mi

    Just a few miles from where you're driving is one of the most incredible wildlife spectacles on the planet. Tucked away in the limestone hills is the Bracken Bat Cave, home to the largest colony of bats in the world.…

  • The Fight to Save the Bats · 3.4 mi

    The Bracken Bat Cave, a global treasure, was at the center of a major environmental battle just over a decade ago. In January of 2013, word got out that a developer, Galo Properties, planned a high-density subdivision —…

  • Living on San Antonio's Sponge · 3.4 mi

    The beautiful, rocky landscape of Garden Ridge isn't just for looks—it's a critical piece of natural infrastructure for the entire region. You're driving over the recharge zone of the Edwards Aquifer, the primary source…

  • The Rockets Forward Out of Samuel Clemens High · 3.4 mi

    Before he spent 13 seasons in the NBA and helped the Houston Rockets reach the Finals, Robert Reid was a kid playing ball at Samuel Clemens High School right here in Schertz. Born in Atlanta in 1955, Reid moved to Texas…

  • How a Texas High School Ended Up Named for Mark Twain · 3.4 mi

    There's no obvious reason a high school in a German-Texan farm town should be named for the author of Tom Sawyer, and the real explanation is gloriously practical. When the Schertz-Cibolo district built a new high…

  • Garden Ridge, TX · 3.4 mi

    Garden Ridge, a city in Comal County, Texas, has a rich history rooted in German emigration. The area was settled by German immigrants in the mid-1800s, and many current residents are descendants of these early…

  • The Town the Freeways Built · 3.6 mi

    For most of its life this was a sleepy farm town of a few hundred people. As late as the 1950s only about 350 people lived here, and when Schertz incorporated as a city in 1958 the count was just 351. Then the…

  • Zions Kirche · 3.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Zions Kirche, a testament to German heritage in Comal County. Organized in 1871 with 52 German members by Reverend William Felsing, this Methodist Episcopal Church began with a simple limestone…

  • Building 100 "Taj Mahal" · 4.0 mi · Historical Marker

    In 1928 the San Antonio Airport Company purchased 2300 acres of land near the city and donated it to the United States Army Air Corps for development of a consolidated flight training facility. Called "the West Point of…

  • Randolph Field Historic District · 4.3 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Ever wonder where the U.S. military first started training pilots on a large scale? You're passing it! Randolph Field, now part of Randolph Air Force Base, was the first permanent flight training facility for the U.S.…

  • The Water Tower Disguised as a Palace Near Live Oak · 4.5 mi

    Just east of Live Oak, at Randolph Air Force Base, stands one of the cleverest pieces of engineering in Bexar County. The base's landmark administration building, opened in 1931 and nicknamed the Taj Mahal, looks like…

  • The Burying Ground Under the 200-Year Oaks · 4.6 mi

    Near Cibolo Creek, in the shade of oak trees now reckoned to be more than 200 years old, lies the Schertz-Cibolo Cemetery, and it began with one farmer's act of decency. German immigrant brothers Ferdinand and August…

  • Named for the Man Who Built the Tracks · 4.7 mi

    The town you're rolling through carries a railroad engineer's name. Converse was named for Major James Converse, chief engineer of the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway, the line that pushed west from Houston…

  • Cotton, Gins, and a Depot Big Enough to Sleep In · 4.7 mi

    Once the rails arrived, Converse became a shipping point for the farms around it, and cotton was king. By 1896 the little settlement had a saloon, a grocery, and two cotton gins humming through the harvest, baling the…

  • The Air Base That Grew the Town · 4.7 mi

    Converse spent its first half-century as a sleepy farm stop of a few hundred people. What changed it was the United States Air Force. Just to the northeast, Randolph Field opened in 1931 as a pilot-training school so…

  • The German Farmhouse That Became the Town's Museum · 4.7 mi

    Converse was first settled by German farmers, and one of their homes still stands as the town's history museum at 10565 Old Cimarron Trail. Anton Otto Schumann, born near New Braunfels in 1875, married Ida Siebold, a…

  • From a Converse Driveway to the WNBA · 4.7 mi

    One of the best basketball players Bexar County has produced in years was born right here. NaLyssa Smith came into the world in Converse on August 8, 2000, the daughter of Rodney Smith, a forward who'd played college…

  • The Depot That Outran the Wrecking Ball · 4.7 mi

    The original masonry depot at Converse didn't survive, but its replacement did, by getting up and leaving town. As rural passenger traffic withered, Southern Pacific tore down the big 1890s station and put up a modest…

  • A German Singing Club and the Oldest 4-H in Texas · 4.7 mi

    For a place now wrapped in San Antonio's suburbs, Converse held onto its old-country roots a remarkably long time. The German farm families who settled here founded the Salatrillo Liederkranz, a community singing…

  • Rocket Pride · 4.8 mi

    In Texas, high school football is a religion, and in Converse, the church is D.W. Rutledge Stadium, home of the Judson Rockets. Judson High School, which serves the Converse area, isn't just a school with a football…

  • The Shadow of the Taj · 4.8 mi

    While you're in Converse, you're in the orbit of one of the most famous landmarks in the U.S. military: Randolph Air Force Base. Just a few miles away, its presence has shaped this town more than almost any other single…

  • The Engineer's Line · 4.8 mi

    As you drive across the railroad tracks in Converse, you're crossing a line drawn by a man named James Converse. He wasn't a politician; he was a civil engineer for the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway, and…

  • Converse, TX · 4.8 mi

    Converse wouldn't exist without the railroad. James Converse, a bigwig with Southern Pacific, probably never set foot here, but his name stuck after the line came through in 1877. Back then, it was just another whistle…

  • Schoenthal School · 4.8 mi · Historical Marker

    Hey road trippers, look to your right! You're passing the Schoenthal School, built way back in 1872. This building is a fantastic example of German fachwerk architecture, a style brought over by immigrants. It's amazing…

  • The Town Named for the Buffalo · 5.1 mi

    The creek you just crossed gave this town its name, and the name means buffalo. Cibolo comes from cibolo, the Spanish word for the American bison that once moved through this country in herds, a term Spanish explorers…

  • Fromme's Store and the Railroad That Made the Town · 5.1 mi

    Cibolo began as a country store beside a railroad. Jacob Schlather bought land out here in 1867, and his son George opened a general store to supply the surrounding farmers, who were mostly German immigrants working the…

  • From 400 People to One of America's Fastest-Growing Towns · 5.1 mi

    Almost everything around you here is new, and that is the whole story. When Cibolo voted to incorporate in 1965, it was a sleepy farm town of only about 400 people, the kind of place where a single general store had…

  • O. Henry and the Smiling Valley of the Cibolo · 5.1 mi

    The short-story master O. Henry left a small literary fingerprint on this valley. Born William Sydney Porter, he spent years in 1880s Texas, much of it on South Texas ranches, soaking up the cowhands, range wars, and…

  • Cibolo · 5.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Cibolo, Texas, a town that owes its very existence to the railroad. Back in 1875, the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railroad laid tracks right through this area. Almost immediately, a…

  • From Sleepy Town to Booming City · 5.3 mi

    For most of its history, Cibolo didn't really need much government. It was a tiny, unincorporated railroad stop. It wasn't until 1965 that the town, with a population of about 500, voted to officially incorporate as a…

  • Forging an Identity: Steele Knights Football · 5.3 mi

    How does a brand-new suburb create a soul? In Cibolo, the answer was football. When Byron P. Steele II High School opened its doors in 2005, the town was in the middle of its explosive population boom. New families were…

  • The Jet Engine of Suburban Growth · 5.3 mi

    The city you’re driving through was fundamentally reshaped by the technology of flight. Just a few miles away is Randolph Air Force Base, a massive hub of aerospace engineering and pilot training. Opened in 1930,…

  • Rocket Football and the NFL Pipeline · 5.3 mi

    At 9142 FM 78 stands one of the most decorated high school football programs in Texas. Judson High School opened in 1959, and beginning in 1977 the Judson Rockets reeled off one of the longest winning-season streaks in…

  • The Heart of Old Cibolo: Schultz's Store · 5.3 mi

    As you pass through Cibolo's old downtown, picture it a century and a half ago. The center of life here wasn't a city hall or a park — it was a general store. Jacob Schlather bought land out this way in 1867, and his…

  • Georg Heinrich Buchsenschutz Family Cemetery · 5.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Georg Heinrich Buchsenschutz Family Cemetery. Buchsenschutz, a veteran of the Mexican-American War, arrived in Texas in 1850. He settled on over 200 acres right here in 1860, the same year he…

  • Cibolo, TX · 5.6 mi

    Cibolo's history is marked by significant growth and development. The community was first established when the Southern Pacific Railroad cut through the area, en route to major cities like Houston and San Antonio. This…

  • Where the Sermons Were German for Fifty Years · 5.6 mi

    The congregation at St. Paul Evangelical Church on South Main Street started the way most things in early Cibolo did, around the kitchen tables of German farmers. About 1876, Reverend T. Frehner and a layman named Oscar…

  • St. Paul Church · 5.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of St. Paul Church in Cibolo, a testament to German immigrant faith. Services began around 1876, held in homes and a schoolhouse, with worship conducted in German. The congregation formally…

  • Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Steele (Cibolo) · 5.9 mi

    Steele (Cibolo, TX) placed on the 6A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Andrew Tschoepe (2 HR).

  • The High School That Sends Players to the NFL · 5.9 mi

    For a suburb that was a village within living memory, Cibolo turns out a remarkable amount of NFL talent, and most of it traces to one campus: Byron P. Steele II High School. Running back Malcolm Brown rewrote the…

  • The Man Behind the Name on the High School · 5.9 mi

    The high school that put Cibolo on the football map is named for an educator most people outside the district never heard of. Dr. Byron P. Steele II spent nearly half a century in Texas schools, working as a teacher, a…

  • Cibolo, TX (Guadalupe County) · 6.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Cibolo, a town whose name comes from the Spanish word for buffalo. This area along Cibolo Creek was known for its steep banks, so steep that Native Americans would reportedly stampede buffalo over…

  • How a Marketing Idea Became a Christmas Tradition · 6.2 mi

    Windcrest's most famous tradition began as a sales pitch. In the late 1950s, co-founder Barbee Winn needed a way to draw buyers to the brand new community. Her idea was simple. Buy strings of Christmas lights, hand them…

  • The Planned Town That Grew Fastest in Texas · 6.2 mi

    Windcrest was not a town that simply grew. It was designed. Developers Murray and Barbee Winn wanted a quiet, orderly place where families could put down roots northeast of San Antonio. The first house went up in 1954…

  • Bueche Cemetery · 6.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Bueche Cemetery. Swiss immigrants Abram Louis (1824-1921) and Anna Barbara (Kaderli) (1825-1905) Bueche, and family, settled in this area, known as Fratt, in 1854. Their infant granddaughter, Frieda…

  • The City of Lights · 6.3 mi

    If you're here between Thanksgiving and New Year's, you're in for a treat. You're in the 'City of Lights.' This isn't just a nickname; it's a core part of Windcrest's identity, and it goes back to the very beginning.…

  • José M. López Memorial Highway · 6.3 mi · Historical Marker

    Honors Staff Sgt. José M. López, WWII Medal of Honor recipient for solo machine-gun stand at the Battle of the Bulge, December 17, 1944. Mexican-born, orphaned at 8, raised in Brownsville and San Antonio.

  • Windcrest, TX · 6.3 mi

    Windcrest, perched just a bit higher than San Antonio, has always felt like a quiet pocket, even as the city around it boomed. You see those old live oaks, sturdy and sprawling? They've watched the whole story unfold.…

  • The Founder's Blueprint · 6.3 mi

    The city you're driving through didn't happen by accident; it was the plan of one couple, Murray Winn Jr. and his wife Barbee. Winn bought seventy-eight acres out here northeast of San Antonio in 1953 and put up the…

  • Haag Cemetery · 6.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the historic Haag Settlement, southwest of New Braunfels. This cemetery was established for the pioneering Haag Brothers: Friedrich, Peter, and Mathias. They made a long, dangerous voyage from…

  • Comal Community · 6.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Garden Ridge, in Comal County, passing through a place with roots stretching back to the mid-1800s. This area was settled by German families, some of the first to arrive in Texas in the 1840s.…

  • The Dead Mall That Became a Tech Castle · 7.2 mi

    The biggest building in Windcrest once sold shoes and sodas. Windsor Park Mall opened in 1976 at Interstate 35 and Walzem Road, thrived for decades, then died in 2005 as shoppers drifted away. In 2007 the web-hosting…

  • Natural Bridge Caverns · 7.3 mi · Things to Do

    Four Saint Marys University students on a lark in 1960 crawled into a sinkhole north of San Antonio and discovered two miles of live limestone caves with…

  • The Perrin Home · 7.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Perrin Home, built in 1875. Alphonse Perrin, born in New York City, came to Texas with his bride, Mina, searching for a better climate. After living near Leon Springs, they settled here, right on…

  • Bracken Cave · 7.5 mi · Things to Do

    The largest bat colony on earth lives in this single sinkhole outside San Antonio -- somewhere between fifteen and twenty million Mexican free-tailed bats…

  • Discovered by college students in 1960 · 7.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the entrance to Natural Bridge Caverns, a geological wonder still forming today. Discovered by college students in 1960, this cave system is named for the rock bridge marking its entrance. Inside,…

  • Natural Bridge Caverns · 7.5 mi · Historical Marker

    Discovered March 27, 1960, by four students of St. Mary's University, San Antonio. Named for the rock bridge that marks entrance. Dedicated on August 5, 1964 by Governor John Connally. Of early cretaceous age; still…

  • Natural Bridge Caverns · 7.5 mi · Natural Landmark

    The largest commercial caverns in Texas, discovered in 1960 by college students. Named for the 60-foot natural limestone bridge at the entrance.

  • The Tough Ombres, Texas' Own · 8.7 mi

    In Bexar County, U S Highway Ninety from Loop Four Ten out to Farm to Market Road Fifteen Eighteen is the Ninetieth Infantry Division Memorial Highway. The Ninetieth Division was activated at Camp Travis on August…

  • The Dawson Massacre · 8.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the area where a brutal ambush took place in 1842. Captain Nicholas Dawson and 53 men from La Grange were on their way to join a battle near Salado Creek. But before they could reach their…

  • The Battle of the Salado · 9.2 mi

    You're driving past the site of the Battle of the Salado, a fight that decided the fate of the Republic of Texas. On September 18, 1842, Mexican General Adrian Woll had captured San Antonio. But Colonel Mathew Caldwell…

  • The Town That Refused to Disappear · 9.5 mi

    San Antonio spent the 1950s swallowing everything around it, and Kirby should have been an easy bite. It had started as farmland along the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio tracks, a place with a cotton gin, a…

  • The Railroad Junction That Became a City · 9.5 mi

    The very existence of Kirby is a lesson in 19th-century transportation engineering. Before any houses or roads were here, this was open prairie. Then in 1877 the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway put a…

  • The Town Named for Railroad Ties · 9.5 mi

    Kirby sits about eight miles northeast of downtown San Antonio, and its name has nothing to do with the famous East Texas lumber baron John Henry Kirby. This Kirby is railroad-born. A station opened here on the…

  • Kirby, TX · 9.5 mi

    Kirby is a major producer of pecans, which grow naturally in the soil. Pecans produce in large quantities between September and November. Certain trees do not produce every four years; 1996, 2000, and 2004 were all…

  • The Chemistry That Made Kirby Ties Last · 9.5 mi

    The Kirby ties that gave this town its name were not plain lumber. A bare wooden crosstie, sitting in Texas rain and heat, rots and splits in roughly five years. The fix was chemistry. Ties were pressure-soaked in…

  • Cole High School (Shaquille O'Neal) · 9.7 mi

    Robert G. Cole High School on Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, TX (1900 Winans Rd.) is where Shaquille O'Neal dominated Texas high school basketball. The son of an Army staff sergeant stationed at the base, Shaq led…

  • Route of El Camino Real · 9.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past a piece of Texas history, folks! This is the route of El Camino Real, the 'King's Highway.' Imagine this 1,000-mile road, stretching all the way from Mexico to what's now Louisiana. It started as an…

  • King's Highway · 9.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the historic King's Highway, also known as Camino Real or the Old San Antonio Road. This route was a vital artery, connecting settlements across Texas. It was officially marked back in 1918 by the…

  • Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Cole (San Antonio) · 9.7 mi

    Cole (San Antonio, TX) placed on the 3A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Carson Kay (0.458 avg, 3 HR).

  • An Engineered Town · 9.9 mi

    The town of Marion owes its shape to 19th-century civil engineering, but not its name. When the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway ran its line west in 1877, the engineers were solving for grade and for…

  • The German Cornerstone · 9.9 mi

    If you want the historical anchor of Marion, look for a steeple, but start with the name. The town dates to 1877, when the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway ran its line through a plantation owned by Joshua…

  • The Heartbeat of a Small Town: Bulldog Football · 9.9 mi

    In a town like Marion, some of the biggest stories aren't in the distant past; they're happening right now, under the Friday night lights. The Marion Bulldogs are the heartbeat of this community. When you drive past the…

  • Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery · 10.1 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    This isn't just a cemetery; it's hallowed ground, a final salute to those who defended our country. Fort Sam Houston National Cemetery was established in 1926 to provide burial space for veterans, primarily those who…

  • Dodd Field (Fort Sam Houston) Enemy Alien Detention Station, World War II · 10.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Dodd Field in San Antonio, a place that played a role in World War II on the home front. Shocked by the attack on Pearl Harbor, the U.S. government began detaining thousands of people…

  • Hill Country Village, TX · 10.2 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving north of San Antonio, and right here is Hill Country Village. Before World War II, this was just a hog farm. But in 1946, developers started building 'Village Estates,' offering spacious nine-acre lots…

  • The Bank That Opened Behind a Saloon · 10.3 mi

    The Marion State Bank at 301 West San Antonio Street is one of the oldest community-chartered banks in Texas, and its first home was about as small-town as it gets. The bank received its state charter on October 26,…

  • Marion State Bank · 10.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Marion State Bank, a financial institution that's been a cornerstone of this community for over a century. Chartered on October 26, 1906, it was one of the first state-chartered banks…

  • Untangling the 281 Corridor · 10.4 mi

    U.S. 281 just north of here has been the site of one of the most ambitious transportation projects in San Antonio's recent history. For decades the freeway ran out past Hollywood Park and everything above Loop 1604…

  • Hollywood Park, TX · 10.4 mi

    Hollywood Park's history is marked by a strong sense of community and autonomy. Incorporated on December 7, 1955, the town's residents sought to preserve their neighborhood's independence from San Antonio. The town has…

  • Hollywood Park's Four-Legged Residents · 10.4 mi

    As you drive through the neighborhoods of Hollywood Park, keep your eyes peeled for the town's most famous residents: the white-tailed deer. There's a large, semi-tame herd that treats these shady yards and quiet…

  • The Nineteen Thirty Seven Road From Texline to Orange · 10.4 mi

    On May eighteenth, nineteen thirty seven, a Texas highway minute order gave the name Veterans of Foreign Wars Memorial Highway to a chain of roads. The route started at the New Mexico state line at Texline and ran to…

  • Herrington, Joseph · 10.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Angelina County, and right here, in what was once the Republic of Texas, you're passing through the birthplace of its county government. Joseph Herrington, just twenty-two years old, was appointed…

  • Marion, TX (Angelina County) · 10.4 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Angelina County, and right near here was Marion, once known as McNeill's Landing. Back in 1828, this was the northernmost steamboat stop on the Angelina River, a vital link bringing cotton down to…

  • Real German Sausage on the Old Main Street · 10.5 mi

    If you want to taste the German farm-town that Marion has always been, pull in at Penshorn's Meat Market at 113 West San Antonio Street. It is exactly the kind of old-line country butcher shop that the town's German…

  • Founding of Town of Marion, 1877 · 10.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising through Marion, Texas, a town born from a railroad boom. Back in 1870, the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio Railway was pushing west, aiming to connect interior Texas to the coast. Colonel Thomas W.…

  • Marion Public Schools · 10.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Marion, a town with German roots, founded back in 1877 as a railroad hub. Right here, a man named T. W. Peirce believed in education, donating three thousand dollars and land for free public…

  • The Town That Built a Wall of Law · 10.6 mi

    You’re driving through a city that exists because its founders drew a line in the sand—or rather, on a map. In the mid-1950s, San Antonio was growing fast, and the independent-minded landowners here saw the writing on…

  • The Accidental Water Guardians · 10.6 mi

    The founders of Hill Country Village wanted space and privacy, and they did not do it halfway. When Village Estates went in here in 1946 — the first subdivision north of San Antonio — the minimum tract was nine acres.…

  • Two Marions, One Town Name · 10.6 mi

    The little railroad town you're rolling through carries a name with two competing origin stories, and the honest answer is that both have been told here for over a century. The official version, carried by the Handbook…

  • From a Railroad Camp to a German Farm Town · 10.6 mi

    Before there was a town here, there was a camp. When the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway pushed its line across western Guadalupe County in the mid-1870s, the work crews threw up a temporary settlement…

  • Two Gins, Two Mills, and a Cotton Economy · 10.6 mi

    For its first 70 years, Marion ran on cotton and corn. By the mid-1880s the young town already had steam, grist, and saw mills, two cotton gins, four general stores, a church, a district school, and about 250 residents,…

  • A Town Engineered Around a Railroad · 10.6 mi

    Marion is one of the cleanest examples in Texas of a town designed by an engineer rather than grown by accident. When Colonel Thomas W. Peirce platted the site in 1876, he did not just scatter lots; he laid the town out…

  • Brooke Army Medical Center · 10.6 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Ever wonder where the Army’s best medical minds train and heal? You’re driving right by it: Brooke Army Medical Center, a cornerstone of military medicine. This story begins back in 1846, during the Mexican-American…

  • From Cotton Wagons to Commuter Traffic · 10.6 mi

    For most of its life Marion barely grew. It had around 250 people in the 1880s, 373 by 1940, and was still under 700 in 1980, a sleepy farm town on FM 78 between Seguin and San Antonio. Then the metro caught up to it.…

  • Marion, TX · 10.6 mi

    Marion, Texas, sits nestled in Guadalupe County, a place where the echoes of the past still whisper on the breeze. The town sprang up alongside the railroad in the late 19th century, a vital artery that connected the…

  • John "Jack" Coker · 10.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Coker community, founded by John "Jack" Coker, who came to Texas from South Carolina in 1834. He fought in the crucial Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. But his most impactful deed? He…

  • Jefferson Davis Smith · 10.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the San Antonio area where Jefferson Davis Smith, a boy known as Jeff, lived out a wild chapter of his life. In 1871, when Jeff was just nine years old, he and his eleven-year-old brother Clint were…

  • Coker Cemetery · 10.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Coker Cemetery. South Carolina native John "Jack" Coker came to Texas in 1834 and fought in the Battle of San Jacinto. In gratitude for his service, Coker received from the Republic of Texas a…

  • Texas HS Baseball Leaders 2026: Alamo Heights (San Antonio) · 11.1 mi

    Alamo Heights (San Antonio, TX) placed on the 5A Texas high school baseball stat leaderboards for the 2026 season: Luke Spielhagen (0.469 avg, 4 HR).

  • The Highway Name That Took Seventy Years to Make Legal · 11.1 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…

  • A City Within a City · 11.2 mi

    As you cross into Terrell Hills you might not notice a change, but legally you've entered a different city. Terrell Hills is an enclave, an independent municipality of about a square mile and a half, completely…

  • Engineering an Enclave · 11.2 mi

    Terrell Hills didn't grow. It was organized. In 1919 six families and three bachelors got together to settle a twenty-four acre tract called Terrell Farms, out past the edge of San Antonio. On January 5, 1920, they…

  • Terrell Hills, TX · 11.2 mi

    Terrell Hills, Texas, has a rich history that dates back to its namesake, Frederick Terrell, a local bank president and former mayor of San Antonio in 1901. The community's development began in 1919 when Terrell sold…

  • The Architect's Showcase · 11.2 mi

    Pay attention to the houses as you drive, especially the grander, older estates. You're looking at the work of one of Texas's most important architects, Atlee B. Ayres, and his son, Robert. In the 1920s and 30s, when…

  • The Battle of the Dinky · 11.5 mi

    Imagine this: it's 1922, and the folks in this leafy little pocket north of San Antonio are nervous. The big city wants to annex them, swallow up their tax base, and give little in return. So the residents of Alamo…

  • The River's Sacred Source · 11.5 mi

    Right on the edge of Alamo Heights, on the campus of the University of the Incarnate Word, lies the very beginning of San Antonio. It's a place called the Blue Hole, a natural spring that is the historic headwaters of…

  • From Quarry Scar to Shopping Center · 11.5 mi

    If you look toward the smokestacks rising near the highway, you're looking at a ghost of industry. From 1908 to 1985 that spot was the Alamo Cement Company, a quarry and factory that chewed up the limestone landscape to…

  • Mission Valley School · 11.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Mission Valley, a community founded by German settlers in the 1840s. For years, kids learned their lessons at home. Then, in 1870, brothers Karl and Julius Brehmer donated land for the first…

  • Fort Sam Houston · 11.6 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    These grounds have trained soldiers for almost 180 years, playing a crucial role in American military history. Established in 1845, Fort Sam Houston was initially an outpost for the U.S. Army, just as Texas was being…

  • Vogel Cemetery · 11.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Vogel Cemetery, established in 1915. It was designated a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2008.

  • Alamo Heights, TX · 11.7 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving past Alamo Heights, a place with roots stretching back to Native American campgrounds and Spanish explorers. Right here, in 1691, Fray Damián Massanet celebrated Mass and officially named this spot San…

  • Bulverde's First Interim Mayor Has a Bridge · 11.9 mi

    The Warren Alston Bridge on Farm to Market Road Eighteen Sixty Three carries the name of a man the Texas Senate called a leading Bulverde citizen. Warren Alston was born in Lamar, Arkansas, on June fourth, nineteen…

  • Homesite of Johann and Gertruda Walzem · 11.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the homesite of Johann and Gertruda Walzem, German immigrants who arrived in Texas around 1851. By 1859, they officially owned the 160 acres they’d settled, including this very spot. Johann was a…

  • New Braunfels Schuetzen Verein · 12.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through New Braunfels, a town founded by German immigrants in 1845. Just four years later, in 1849, they formed one of the nation's first shooting clubs: the New Braunfels Schuetzen Verein. They brought…

  • The Argyle · 12.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the historic Argyle mansion in Alamo Heights. It started life in 1859 as the headquarters for a massive 1400-acre ranch, built by Charles Anderson. After Anderson left town on the eve of the Civil…

  • Walzem Chapel · 12.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Walzem Chapel, built by German immigrants in the Mission Valley Settlement. Johann Walzem, a stone mason, and his sons quarried local limestone and built this chapel around 1870, legend…

  • How the Purple Heart Trail Grew Across Texas · 12.2 mi

    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…

  • A Star in the Window, a Marker by the Road · 12.2 mi

    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…

  • Incarnate Word College · 12.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the historic site of Incarnate Word College in San Antonio. This wasn't just any school; it grew from a teaching charter granted in 1881 to the Sisters of Charity of the Incarnate Word. By 1893, they…

  • The Mayor's Freeway That Took an Act of Congress · 12.3 mi

    The McAllister Freeway, U.S. Two Eighty One heading north out of downtown San Antonio, is named for Walter W. McAllister Senior. He was born in San Antonio in eighteen eighty nine and earned an electrical engineering…

  • The Pershing Chinese · 12.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past The Pershing Chinese. In March, 1916, President Woodrow Wilson ordered General John J. Pershing to lead an expedition into Mexico to punish Pancho Villa, the Mexican revolutionary whose troops…

  • West End Park and Dance Hall · 12.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of what used to be West End Park and Dance Hall, a vibrant hub for New Braunfels' Hispanic community. After serving in World War II, Felipe Delgado and his wife Elisa bought this land in…

  • Edgar Alfred Grist, DVM · 12.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the former site of New Braunfels Veterinary Hospital. Dr. Edgar Alfred Grist, the first licensed vet in Comal County, opened this practice in 1950. He was also the visionary behind the famous…

  • Brackenridge Park Bridge · 12.6 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    This unassuming bridge tells a story of San Antonio's growth and ingenuity. Constructed in 1890, this Lenticular truss bridge was built to improve access within Brackenridge Park. It's a relatively rare design, with…

  • Carl Heinrich Guenther · 12.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the New Braunfels home of Carl Heinrich Guenther, a Prussian immigrant who arrived in Texas in 1845. He was a teacher, a leader of German singing societies, and even presided over a statewide…

  • New Braunfels Cemetery · 12.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through New Braunfels, and right here is the city's first cemetery, dedicated way back on June 23rd, 1845, just months after this town was founded by German immigrants. It saw many colonists laid to rest…

  • The Dam That Made a City Safe · 12.7 mi

    The beautiful homes and serene streets of Olmos Park exist thanks to a massive piece of engineering just to the north: the Olmos Dam. Before it was built, high water off Olmos Creek was a standing threat to San Antonio.…

  • A Developer's Park-Like Vision · 12.7 mi

    The winding roads and park-like feel of Olmos Park aren't an accident; they're one man's design. In the 1920s the developer H. C. Thorman — an oilman turned real estate tycoon — bought this land from an Austrian count…

  • Manuel Flores: Patriot and Pariah · 12.7 mi

    Local tradition ties the name Santa Clara to a Tejano rancher whose life ran straight through the Texas Revolution: Manuel Flores. Born in San Antonio around 1801, he joined the volunteer company raised by his…

  • The Flash Flood Engine of Cibolo Creek · 12.7 mi

    Cibolo Creek has a dangerous dual personality, and the reason is geology. It rises at Turkey Knob near Boerne, up in Kendall County, and runs about ninety-six miles southeast to meet the San Antonio River in Karnes…

  • Olmos Park, TX · 12.7 mi

    Olmos Park, a city in Bexar County, Texas, was developed in the 1920s as an exclusive suburb of San Antonio. The area was once the site of Camp John Wise, a US Army balloonist training site built in 1917, which shut…

  • The Island City · 12.7 mi

    Olmos Park is its own city for one main reason: it did not want to become part of San Antonio. You're driving through an independent municipality, a small island of self-governance surrounded by a major metropolis. An…

  • The Town That Woke Up · 12.7 mi

    For most of its life Santa Clara was perfectly happy not being a town. It was a place, not a city - farms strung out along the county road, a church, a cemetery, and a one-teacher school that in 1904 had thirty-two…

  • Saint Hedwig, TX · 12.7 mi

    Here in Saint Hedwig, you're standing on the edge of what was once a vast, shallow sea. Millions of years ago, the Gulf Coast stretched much further inland, leaving behind layers of sediment that eventually hardened…

  • Ludwig Mahncke · 12.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Mahncke Park in San Antonio. This park is named for Ludwig Mahncke, an immigrant who became a key figure in shaping the city's green spaces. Arriving from Germany in 1882, Mahncke was a…

  • The Island City · 12.9 mi

    Castle Hills is what's called an 'island city' — a small, independent town ringed by a larger one. And it didn't happen by accident. Families had settled these hills in the early 1920s, many of them tied to the oil…

  • The Highway That Reshaped a City · 12.9 mi

    As you drive near Castle Hills, you're almost certainly going to use Loop 410 — signed as Interstate 410, officially the Connally Loop, the freeway that rings San Antonio for nearly fifty miles. Building it was a…

  • Castle Hills, TX · 12.9 mi

    Castle Hills is home to a diverse population, with 38.9% of residents identifying as Hispanic or Latino of any race, primarily Mexican American. This rich cultural heritage adds a unique flavor to the community.

  • Mission Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe · 12.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Mission Nuestra Senora de Guadalupe, established way back in 1757. Franciscan missionaries set up shop here with a goal: to civilize and Christianize the local Tonkawa, Mayeye, and other…

  • Alamo Portland and Roman Cement Company · 13.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a Texas first! Back in 1879, an Englishman named William Loyd stumbled upon a unique blue limestone right here. A local chemist confirmed it was perfect for making portland cement. Loyd…

  • Portland Cement Plants · 13.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a Texas industrial first! Right here, the Alamo Roman and Portland Cement Company fired up the first Portland cement plant west of the Mississippi River. Incorporated in 1880, this plant…

  • Alamo Stadium · 13.0 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Ever wondered where the heart of San Antonio's high school sports beats? Look no further than Alamo Stadium, affectionately known as 'The Rock Pile.' This isn't just a stadium; it's a monument to community spirit and…

  • Brackenridge Park · 13.1 mi · Scraped Hmdb

    Believe it or not, this peaceful park was once a strategic point during a war. During the Mexican-American War, in 1846, U.S. troops under General Zachary Taylor camped near here, using the San Antonio River as a water…

  • Confederate Tannery · 13.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a Confederate tannery, established in 1863 to equip soldiers. <break time="400ms"/> This wasn't your average operation; they used a unique tanning agent made from chopped mesquite wood.…

  • The Community's 30-Acre Heart · 13.2 mi

    At the very heart of Timberwood Park isn't a city hall or a courthouse, but a park. When this community was designed in the late 1970s, the developers set aside a 30-acre private park for the residents. This became the…

  • The Highway That Built a Suburb · 13.2 mi

    The road you're likely driving on, or one very near it, is the main reason Timberwood Park exists in its current form. For decades, U.S. Highway 281 north of San Antonio was a two-lane country road winding through…

  • Timberwood Park, TX · 13.2 mi

    As a large, unincorporated residential area rather than a distinct town, Timberwood Park doesn't have a list of famous sons and daughters in the traditional sense. While it's a desirable area that's certainly home to…

  • Bullis House · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the former home of General John Lapham Bullis, a man who made his name on the Texas frontier. <break time="400ms"/> In 1873, he took command of Seminole Scouts, a company renowned for tracking and…

  • Zambrano House · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Zambrano House, a home built in San Antonio in the 18th century. It's a classic example of rammed earth construction, built by Macario Zambrano, an early landowner. But the Zambrano family's…

  • Acequia de Arriba · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Acequia de Arriba. In the late 1700s, residents of the Villa de San Fernando petitioned the King of Spain for permission to furrow an acequia (irrigation ditch) to water the land for the growing…

  • Belgian Transit of Venus Observation Site · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker

    Hey road trippers! You're cruising past a spot in San Antonio that played a small but significant role in understanding our solar system. Back in 1882, Belgian astronomer Jean-Charles Houzeau brought an international…

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