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Yoakum, Texas

Everything Yoakum is known for

1 song mention this city 1 artist from here

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

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Music in Yoakum

Songs About Yoakum

Yoakum Texas Blues
Lucius Parr
60%

Artists From Yoakum

D
Dawson DeBord
country

Rivers & Roads in Song near Yoakum

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

Guadalupe River 18 songs US Route 90 9 songs Interstate 10 36 songs U.S. Route 59 9 songs Texas Colorado River 6 songs Texas State Highway 71 2 songs

History of Yoakum

One Company Gave Yoakum Water, Light and Ice RoadyGoat

Yoakum was a railroad camp that turned into a town very fast, and in 1892 one man decided it should have the three things a town needs to stop being a camp. James G. Blanks organized the Blanks Ice, Water and Power Company and built waterworks, an electric light plant and an ice factory. The plant cost forty two thousand dollars against fifty thousand in capital stock, and by the time the light plant was folded in, the whole thing came to fifty five thousand. Think about what that buys in a place like this in the eighteen nineties. Water that arrives in a pipe instead of a bucket. A street you can walk down after dark. And ice, in south Texas, in July, which changes what you can eat and how long meat keeps. He was thirty when he started it.

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The Gulf Ran Him Off and Yoakum Got a Store RoadyGoat

H. Mylius spent sixteen years as a sailor before he ever sold anything. He captained the mail boat between Matagorda and Indianola and Saluria, twice a week for five years. In the war he was put on a gunboat in Matagorda Bay, then on the steamer Camargo running the blockade to Matamoros, and that is where he was standing when word came that Lee had surrendered. The Federals took his sloop, used it a while, and burned it. He built another, worked the oyster trade, and finally opened a grocery and ship chandlery at Indianola. Then the great storm of 1886 destroyed his property, and Indianola as a port was finished. He tried Galveston for a year and Cuero for seven months, and in 1887 he came to Yoakum and opened the second dry goods store in town. His was the third business house built on Grand Avenue. Some of this town was built by people the coast threw inland.

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She Was Born Here and Built the Alley RoadyGoat

Nina Eloise Whittington was born in Yoakum on the twenty second of October, 1914, the only child of Calvin and Minerva Whittington. Her mother was a DeWitt, and she came down from Green DeWitt, the empresario whose colony covered this exact stretch of country. She took a theatre degree at TCU, moved to Houston in 1939, and taught drama in high schools there. Then in 1947 she did the thing she is remembered for. She mailed out more than two hundred postcards asking whether Houston wanted a theatre company. Enough people turned up that they went ahead, in a dance studio you reached by walking down a long alleyway, and somebody suggested they call themselves the Alley. She ran it for thirty three years, directed over a hundred productions, and turned it into one of the most respected resident theatres in the country. She died in 1980 and is buried at Gonzales, which is Green DeWitt's own town. She started in his colony and she went back to it.

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Knickerbocker, Hubert Renfro

1923

Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker, writer, was born in Yoakum, Texas, on January 31, 1898, the son of Rev. Hubert Delancey and Julia Catherine (Opdenweyer) Knickerbocker. After graduation from Southwestern University in 1917 he served briefly with the United States Army on the Mexican border and then delivered milk in Austin. In 1919 he went to Columbia University to study psychiatry. His career in journalism began in 1920, when he became a reporter for the Newark, New Jersey, Morning Ledger ; in 1922 he reported for the New York Evening Post and the New York Sun , then returned to Texas as journalism department chairman at Southern Methodist University for the 1922–23 term. He went to Munich, Germany, with the intention of studying psychiatry, but historic events and his reporter's instinct intervened. He was a witness to the Beer Hall Putsch of Adolph Hitler on November 8–9, 1923. Shortly afterward he became assistant Berlin correspondent for the New York Evening Post and the Philadelphia Public Ledger . He became chief Berlin correspondent for these two newspapers in 1928 and continued in that capacity until 1941. His friends told the story that he secured his promotion by introducing his predecessor, Dorothy Thompson, to Sinclair Lewis and by promoting their subsequent romance and marriage. From 1925 to 1941 Knickerbocker was also a European correspondent for International News Service. From 1923 to 1933 he based his activities in Berlin. Only from 1925 to 1927 did he divide his time between Berlin and Moscow, where he reported for INS. In Germany he published six books in German and wrote columns in two major German newspapers, the Vossische Zeitung and the Berliner Tageblatt . He circulated in highest German political, social, and cultural circles. His critical views on Soviet economy and foreign affairs were generally well received in Germany, especially his Der rote Handel lockt (1931), which was published in English as The Red Trade Menace (1931). In 1931 Knickerbocker won the Pulitzer Prize for his articles describing and analyzing the Soviet Five-Year Plan. His strong opposition to Hitler and the Nazi movement, however, made his position difficult when Hitler became a major political figure in 1932. With the Nazi takeover in 1933, Knickerbocker was deported and forced to report on Germany from beyond the frontiers of the Third Reich. In 1933 he made an extensive research tour of Europe, on which he interviewed hundreds of public figures and many heads of state, asking the question beginning to trouble most Europeans and some Americans: "Will war come to Europe?" In his book Will War Come to Europe? (1934) he forecast a general European war. He spent the rest of his life witnessing, reporting, and interpreting the events foreshadowing the World War II . He covered the Italo-Abyssinian War in 1935–36, the Spanish Civil War in 1936–37, the early phases of the Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the Anschluss and the Czech crisis in 1938, the defeat of France in 1940, and the battle of Britain in 1940. In March and April 1940 Knickerbocker devoted himself to the American lecture circuit, strongly urging American support of the war against the Axis powers. Repeatedly in late 1940 and in 1941 he toured the United States declaring that "we should go into war today." On April 24, 1941, he spoke on the University of Texas campus, and on November 20, 1941, after a speech at Southern Methodist University, he exchanged heated remarks with students who opposed United States entry into the war. Knickerbocker summed up his views in the book Is Tomorrow Hitler's? (1941). In 1941 he went to work for the Chicago Sun as its chief foreign correspondent in the Far East and South Pacific. In 1942 he followed Allied troops into North Africa, reporting for the Sun and acting as the official correspondent for the First Division of the United States Army. During the remainder of the war he reported from the European theater of military operations. After th

Tsha Handbook →

Prosser, Inez Beverly

1933

Inez Beverly Prosser, teacher and administrator and one of the first black women to receive a Ph.D. in the United States, the oldest daughter of eleven children of Samuel Andrew and Veola (Hamilton) Beverly, was born in Yoakum, Texas, in 1897. She was the valedictorian of her class both in high school and college. In 1912 she graduated from Yoakum Colored High School, where she later taught for a brief period. After receiving a degree in teacher training from Prairie View Normal College, she accepted a teaching position in Austin, where she graduated with distinction from Samuel Huston College with a major in education. She married Texan Rufus A. Prosser. Enabled by the award of a General Education Board Fellowship in 1934, she obtained a master of arts degree in educational psychology from the University of Colorado. While teaching education at Tillotson College, she was recognized as an excellent teacher and leader. In 1929–30 she coordinated a series of lectures that featured a visit by George Washington Carver. She served as the dean and registrar from 1921 to 1930, when she accepted a teaching and administrative position at Tougaloo College in Tougaloo, Mississippi. She received a Ph.D. in educational psychology from the University of Cincinnati in 1933. Her dissertation, The Non-Academic Development of Negro Children in Mixed and Segregated Schools, was one of the earliest treatises on the social domain of elementary school children. Inez Prosser was a member of Alpha Kappa Alpha and the African Methodist Episcopal Church . She established a fund to enable her sisters and brothers to obtain a college education. All of them completed high school, and six of them completed college. In 1934 she was killed in an automobile collision near Shreveport, Louisiana. In recognition of her contribution to Texas culture, she was recognized at HemisFair `68 in San Antonio.

Tsha Handbook →

Katolika Jednota Zen Texaskych (K.J.Z.T.)

1894

Czech families came to Texas in the 1800s and bought farms where women worked equally with men to clear land and plant and harvest crops. Despite their efforts, life insurance companies would not sell policies to women, citing uncertain income and lack of credit or savings. At the same time, funeral costs and other hardships added to families' difficulties in times of illness or death. To help alleviate these burdens, in 1894, Anna (Migl) Jakubik (1853-1946) and Marie Yurek (Jurek) (1860-1950) of Yoakum founded Katolika Jednota Zen Texaskych (K.J.Z.T.), or Catholic Women's Union of Texas. Jakubik and Yurek approached Rev. Francis Just for help in forming a mutual aid society for the Czech women of St. Joseph's Parish. Ten women gathered at the first meeting and the organization quickly grew to include multiple affiliated groups across the state. By 1917, there were 60 societies in Texas with more than 8,000 members.
 The organization initially formed to aid families during times of death. However, the K.J.Z.T. transformed into a successful financial institution providing life insurance, loans, mortgages, scholarships and community service. From the beginning, the K.J.Z.T. exclusively employed women to oversee and operate its business, giving Texas women professional and career opportunities and training. The statewide group also printed a sizeable weekly newspaper, Novy Domov (New Home), published in Hallettsville by Anna Jakubik and her husband, Frantisek. The full-size newspaper printed in the Czech language included hard news, unusual among women's publications of the time. Novy Domov later merged with the newspaper Katolik to become the K.J.Z.T. News. From origins as a small aid society, the K.J.Z.T. grew to become and influential organization with thousands of members. (2019)

Historical Marker →

Daily, Harold W. [Pappy]

1933

Harold Westcott (Pappy) Daily, record producer, music publisher, and promoter of Texas music, was born in Yoakum, Texas, on February 8, 1902. His father died when Daily was still a child. His mother soon remarried and moved the family to Houston. At age sixteen he left Central High School to join the Marine Corps. Discharged after two years, he began working for the Southern Pacific Railroad. Around the same time he began playing baseball. From the mid 1920s until 1931, he dabbled in baseball management and even launched a new baseball team called the Freeport Tarpons. When the Great Depression forced the Southern Pacific to lay off many of its workers, Daily sought a job with more security. He soon found it in the amusement-machine business. At first he kept his job with the railroad and worked part-time distributing jukeboxes. In 1933, he borrowed $250 from a Southern Pacific coworker to open a store. Before long he had his own jukebox distributing company, known as South Coast Amusement Company, in Houston. Although he never read sheet music or played an instrument, Daily developed an ear for country music by listening to the records in his jukeboxes. Shellac rationing during World War II restricted the production of jukeboxes and records. Undaunted, Daily gathered as many records as he could and opened a record store in Houston. He claimed to have brought the first Capitol record into Texas in 1942. In 1952 Daily and his business partner, Jack Starnes, founded the Starday label. Daily paired artists with songs and supervised recording sessions. The most notable stars to sign with Starday include George Jones , Roger Miller , Benny Barnes , and Frankie Miller. He also helped launch the careers of J. P. "The Big Bopper" Richardson , Johnny Preston , and others. By 1958 Daily had sold his interests in Starday and began producing and managing his own Houston based label, D Records . He hoped this line would serve as a regional subsidiary for Mercury Records, with which he had established a working relationship as George Jones's producer. The two companies reached an agreement by which, if a D Records recording began selling well in Texas, Daily would lease the record to Mercury for national distribution. During the next twenty years D Records released hundreds of songs, including a couple of early recordings by Willie Nelson and George Strait. J.P. Richardson "The Big Bopper's" 1958 recording of "Chantilly Lacy" became Daily's biggest seller. Although the label typically recorded Texas honky-tonk music, it also covered western swing, rockabilly, Tex Mex, Cajun, and polka music . Pappy recorded his last session in February 1971 in Nashville with George Jones. During the 1970s and 1980s he remained active only with his publishing company, Glad Music Company, founded in 1958. Glad was still an active company in the 2000s, with rights to such classics as "White Lightnin'," "She Thinks I Still Care," "Chantilly Lace," "Night Life," and "The Party's Over." Several members of the family carried on his musical legacy. In 1958 Pappy sold his record-distributing company, H. W. Daily, Inc., to his sons, Bud and Don, who opened Cactus Music and Video in Houston in 1975 and operated the store until their retirement in 2006. Daily died on December 5, 1987, in Houston and is buried at Forest Park Lawndale Cemetery in that city. After his death Bud and Don also took over the D Records catalog. Pappy's grandson, Mike Daily, began a successful career playing steel guitar for George Strait's Ace in the Hole Band in 1975. His grandson Wes Daily revived the D Records label in 2002.

Tsha Handbook →

Yoakum - 2025 Texas 3A Division I state football champion

2025

Yoakum defeated Grandview 45-29 for the 2025 Texas 3A Division I state football championship.

Sports News →

Trail Drivers of Southwest Texas

1867

In Memory of The Trail Drivers of Southwest Texas who passed this way 1867-1887.

Historical Marker →

Things to Do in Yoakum

historical 23.4 mi away
The Immortal 32: Gonzales Rides to the Alamo

William Travis sent out desperate letters from the besieged Alamo begging any Texan who would listen to come help. Every town looked away except one. On March…
historical 23.5 mi away
Come and Take It: The Shot That Started a Revolution

In 1831 Mexico loaned the colonists of Gonzales a small brass cannon to fend off Comanche raids. Four years later they wanted it back. On October 2 1835 a…
quirky 9.3 mi away
When Hippies Discovered Shiner Beer

For its first 60 years Shiner Beer barely left the county. Then in the 1970s something unexpected happened. At the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin an…
historical 9.3 mi away
The Only Female Brewery Owner in America

When Kosmos Spoetzl died in 1950 his daughter Cecile -- known as Miss Celie -- took over the brewery. She became the only female brewery owner in the entire…
historical 9.4 mi away
The Brewmaster from Egypt

Kosmos Spoetzl took one of the strangest paths to small-town Texas. Born in Bavaria he trained at brewmaster school in Germany then spent eight years brewing…
quirky 9.4 mi away
The Beer That Tasted Like Medicine

In 1909 a group of homesick German and Czech farmers in tiny Shiner Texas pooled their money built a ramshackle brewery and tried to make beer that reminded…
food 9.8 mi away
Spoetzl Brewery

Home of Shiner beer since 1909. Free tours and tastings in tiny Shiner Texas.
historical 23.4 mi away
All Dead — Susanna Dickinson Brings the News

Susanna Dickinson survived the fall of the Alamo because Santa Anna wanted a messenger. He put her on a horse with her infant daughter and a warning letter for…

Sports in Yoakum

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 3A · Football · 2025

Yoakum Bulldogs — 2025 UIL 3A Division 1 Football State Champions

Most recent: 45-29 over Grandview · 2025 3A Division 1 final

Yoakum High School, a familiar name in Class 3A football across Texas, proudly represents its community. The Bulldogs have a history of competitive play on the gridiron, often battling deep into the playoffs. The town rallies around its team each season, with the stadium becoming a focal point for community spirit and athletic endeavor.

The 2025 season stands out in Yoakum's football history. That year, the Bulldogs secured the 3A Division 1 State Championship. This achievement marks a high point for the program, reflecting years of dedication and hard work from student-athletes and coaching staff.

State titles
2025
Most recent
2025, 45-29
Class
3A
The moment

The Yoakum Bulldogs claimed the 2025 3A Division 1 State Championship by defeating Grandview with a score of 45-29.

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

Everything Near Yoakum

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

  • One Company Gave Yoakum Water, Light and Ice

    Yoakum was a railroad camp that turned into a town very fast, and in 1892 one man decided it should have the three things a town needs to stop being a camp. James G. Blanks organized the Blanks Ice, Water and Power…

  • The Gulf Ran Him Off and Yoakum Got a Store

    H. Mylius spent sixteen years as a sailor before he ever sold anything. He captained the mail boat between Matagorda and Indianola and Saluria, twice a week for five years. In the war he was put on a gunboat in…

  • She Was Born Here and Built the Alley

    Nina Eloise Whittington was born in Yoakum on the twenty second of October, 1914, the only child of Calvin and Minerva Whittington. Her mother was a DeWitt, and she came down from Green DeWitt, the empresario whose…

  • She Graduated First in Her Class Here, Then Broke a Barrier

    Inez Beverly was born in Yoakum in 1897 and graduated from Yoakum Colored High School in 1912 as valedictorian. Then she did it again in college. She kept going, through Prairie View and Samuel Huston College, a…

  • The Dentist Who Took Texas to the Supreme Court

    Lonnie E. Smith was born in Yoakum in 1901, took a dental degree at Meharry in Nashville in 1924, and set up practice in Galveston and later Houston. On the twenty seventh of July, 1940, he went to vote in the…

  • He Was in the Room for the Beer Hall Putsch

    Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker was born in Yoakum on the last day of January, 1898, and ended up with about the best seat in the twentieth century, if you can call it that. He was in Munich for Hitler's Beer Hall Putsch in…

  • Thirteen Men Went After a Kidnapped Boy

    In October of 1837 a Comanche party raided the Navidad settlement, killed a man named Lyons and carried off his thirteen year old son Warren. There were only ten families in this whole stretch of country then, so there…

  • A Hundred and Six, Under Five Flags

    In November of 1924 the papers came out to the Yoakum section to write up Caroline Elizabeth Dickinson, who had just turned a hundred and six. She was living with her son, who was seventy eight. She had been in the same…

  • They Made the Nails on Site

    Out on Highway 111 between two cemeteries there are stone ruins worth knowing about. The Dunn brothers gave fifty acres in 1868 for a church and school in what was then a heavily Irish and Czech Catholic district, near…

  • He Won the Election and Lost the Office to a Typo

    E. Mullen ran the post office at Yoakum, which the write up describes as having charge of the interests of Uncle Sam. He also ran for mayor. He received a majority of the votes. He did not become mayor, because of a…

  • The Man Who Put Up the Brick

    If you want to know who built early Yoakum, in the literal sense of who stacked it, the answer is largely William E. Pound. He was the leading builder in town and the permanent structures are his list: the only three…

  • From the Firebox to the Bargaining Table

    Richard Ewing Kirk hired on at Yoakum in 1894 as a fireman, which meant shovelling coal into a locomotive, and it is the hardest ordinary job on a railroad. He made engineer in 1898 and his first run was Yoakum to…

Show all 200 nearby places
  • The Power Plant Is the Library Now

    Yoakum tried to buy the electric company and could not, so in 1930, at a commission meeting about three hundred people turned up for, the city voted to build its own power plant instead. It went up in 1932 and it was…

  • Silk Stocking Row

    Will Orth was a railroad conductor who also owned a flour mill, and in 1910 he built himself a house on Coke Street. That turned out to set a fashion. Other prominent Yoakum families started building along the same…

  • Knickerbocker, Hubert Renfro · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Hubert Renfro Knickerbocker, writer, was born in Yoakum, Texas, on January 31, 1898, the son of Rev. Hubert Delancey and Julia Catherine (Opdenweyer) Knickerbocker. After graduation from Southwestern University in 1917…

  • Prosser, Inez Beverly · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Inez Beverly Prosser, teacher and administrator and one of the first black women to receive a Ph.D. in the United States, the oldest daughter of eleven children of Samuel Andrew and Veola (Hamilton) Beverly, was born in…

  • Daily, Harold W. [Pappy] · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Harold Westcott (Pappy) Daily, record producer, music publisher, and promoter of Texas music, was born in Yoakum, Texas, on February 8, 1902. His father died when Daily was still a child. His mother soon remarried and…

  • Yoakum, Benjamin Franklin · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through South Texas, and right here, the town of Yoakum is named for Benjamin Franklin Yoakum. He wasn't a politician or a soldier, but a titan of the railroad industry, born just up the road in Limestone…

  • Yoakum, TX · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Yoakum, a town that owes its existence to the railroad. <break time="400ms"/> Originally built on land used for gathering cattle before the Chisholm Trail, this place didn't really take off until…

  • Porche, Pierre · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Lavaca County, near Yoakum, a place that became home to Pierre Porche in 1860. He was a Louisiana planter who moved his entire household, including his legitimate family and his enslaved companion…

  • Niemann, Fredrick Augusta · 0.1 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Lavaca County, near Yoakum, where Fredrick Niemann got his start. Born in 1919, Niemann served in World War II before returning to law school. He then represented this area, Lavaca and Gonzales…

  • First Baptist Church of Yoakum · 0.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Yoakum, and right here is where the First Baptist Church got its start. It was April 7th, 1889, just a month before this town was even officially incorporated. Seven members, led by Reverend H. M.…

  • Katolika Jednota Zen Texaskych (K.J.Z.T.) · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker

    Czech families came to Texas in the 1800s and bought farms where women worked equally with men to clear land and plant and harvest crops. Despite their efforts, life insurance companies would not sell policies to women,…

  • First Presbyterian Church of Yoakum · 0.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the First Presbyterian Church of Yoakum, a congregation that officially got its start on New Year's Eve, 1893. Twenty-two charter members, folks like Thompson Presley and Mrs. M. H. Boyd, came…

  • A Five-and-Dime Fortune Built This House · 0.3 mi

    At 312 Simpson Street sits the Yoakum Heritage Museum, and the building itself is half the story. It's a grand 1912 Victorian residence built by the Elkins family, who made their money running a chain of five-and-dime…

  • Yoakum National Bank · 0.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Yoakum National Bank. It started as the First National Bank of Yoakum back in 1890, organized by W.O. Richardson and other community leaders. This bank grew with the town, even…

  • Municipal Power Plant · 0.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Yoakum, and right here is the old Municipal Power Plant, built back in 1930. When the city couldn't buy power from existing companies, they decided to build their own. Designed by Montgomery and…

  • Orth-Fitch House · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past what used to be "Silk Stocking Row" in Yoakum. This grand house, built in 1910 by railroad conductor and flour mill owner Will Orth, was one of the first prominent homes on this street. Designed by…

  • Dempsey Benton Cain House · 0.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Dempsey Benton Cain House, a grand Classical Revival residence completed in 1913. Designed by J. Henry Yentzen, it features a hipped roof, a two-story porch, and unique green slag glass windows.…

  • 2025 UIL 3A Division 1 Football State Champions · 0.7 mi

    Yoakum High School (Yoakum, TX): Most recent: 45-29 over Grandview · 2025 3A Division 1 final.

  • Yoakum - 2025 Texas 3A Division I state football champion · 0.7 mi · Sports News

    Yoakum defeated Grandview 45-29 for the 2025 Texas 3A Division I state football championship.

  • The Town the Railroad Named After Its Own Boss · 0.8 mi

    You're rolling into a town that didn't exist until a railroad decided it should. The land here, straddling the Lavaca and DeWitt county line, sat mostly empty until the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway pushed its…

  • How a Cattle Town Became the Leather Capital of the World · 0.8 mi

    Yoakum still calls itself the Leather Capital of the World, and that's not just a slogan painted on a water tower. It started in 1919, when Phillip Welhausen and William Green opened a small tannery in town, the first…

  • Why a Leather Town Throws a Party for the Tomato · 0.8 mi

    Once a year, the first weekend of June, Yoakum still celebrates a vegetable. The Tom-Tom Festival sounds like it should involve drums, but the name is pure tomato. In 1925 a brutal drought wrecked the local cotton and…

  • The Man Who Launched George Jones Was Born Here · 0.8 mi

    Yoakum's biggest contribution to country music left town as a kid but never left the credits. Harold Westcott Daily, known to everyone as Pappy, was born in Yoakum in 1902. His father died young, his mother remarried,…

  • The Chemistry That Turns Rawhide Into a Saddle · 0.8 mi

    Every saddle that ever came out of Yoakum depended on a chemistry trick, because a raw hide is just protein that will rot or stiffen into rawhide if you leave it alone. Tanning permanently rewires that protein. A hide…

  • Where the Whole Railroad Came to Get Fixed · 0.8 mi

    What turned Yoakum from a track-side store into a real city was steel and grease. In 1888, just a year after the town was founded, the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway placed its repair shops and a large roundhouse…

  • The Saddle Brand That Kept Coming Home · 0.8 mi

    Out at 601 Hickey Street is the Tex Tan plant, the surviving heart of Yoakum's leather story. The brand grew out of the 1919 Welhausen tannery and spent the 20th century building tooled western saddles, Hereford-brand…

  • The Blue Nun of the Old Hospital · 0.8 mi

    After dark, the old Yoakum hospital has a reputation. The Yoakum Community Hospital opened to patients in 1922 and served the town for 75 years before it closed in 1997, when a new medical center was finished. Empty…

  • Before the Town, This Was a Place to Gather Cattle · 0.8 mi

    Long before there was a depot, a tannery, or a tomato shed here, this ground had one job, cattle. The land Yoakum now sits on was part of a league granted to John May by the government of Coahuila and Texas in 1835, in…

  • The Coach Who Gave Rice Its First National Title · 0.8 mi

    Wayne Leon Graham was born in Yoakum, and he grew up to become one of the most decorated coaches in college baseball. After a brief major-league playing career, Graham made his name on the dugout steps, first piling up…

  • First Methodist Church of Yoakum · 0.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Yoakum, and right here is the site of the First United Methodist Church. Back in 1889, Reverend Thomas S. Armstrong gathered a small group to start this congregation. They held services in some…

  • Trail Drivers of Southwest Texas · 0.9 mi · Historical Marker

    In Memory of The Trail Drivers of Southwest Texas who passed this way 1867-1887.

  • Yoakum · 0.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Yoakum, a town born from cattle drives and a railroad. This land was first granted by Mexico back in 1835 to John May, and it became a key gathering spot for the famous Chisholm Trail. But…

  • St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery · 0.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Lavaca County, near where the old Brushy community once thrived. This is the site of St. Joseph Catholic Cemetery. While the original Brushy Church burned down in 1932, this cemetery has served…

  • Holy Cross Lutheran Church · 0.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Holy Cross Lutheran Church in Yoakum. Organized in 1891 by about ten families and the Rev. Cornelius Ziesmer, the congregation's first sanctuary, completed in 1893, was destroyed by a…

  • The Leather Capital of the World · 1.1 mi

    For much of the 20th century, Yoakum didn't just smell of money; it smelled of leather. This small Texas town earned the ambitious title 'Leather Capital of the World,' and for good reason. It began in 1919 when Carl…

  • The Engineering of a Railroad Town · 1.1 mi

    Yoakum's existence is a testament to late 19th-century transportation engineering. The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway wasn't just laying track; it was designing a complex logistical system. Steam locomotives were…

  • When the Tomato was King · 1.1 mi

    Before it was all about leather, Yoakum had a different claim to fame: the tomato. In 1925 railroad traffic was slowing and cotton was falling, so the Chamber of Commerce talked local farmers into what they called the…

  • Yoakum, TX · 1.1 mi

    Yoakum has a rich industrial history, with the Tex-Tan company, later part of the Tandy Corporation, manufacturing saddles, bridles, harnesses, belts, and wallets in the early 20th century. Other industries in Yoakum…

  • Ruins of Brushy Creek Church · 1.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Ruins of Brushy Creek Church, a testament to faith and hard work. <break time="400ms"/> Donated in 1868, this place became the heart of a community built by Irish and Czech…

  • May-Hickey House · 2.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the May-Hickey House, one of the most important early vernacular dwellings still standing in southeast Texas. It was built in the 1840s for the John Joseph May family, and the James Hickey family…

  • Von Hugo - Von Clausewitz Family Cemetery · 4.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Von Hugo - Von Clausewitz Family Cemetery. Back in the 1870s, this quiet oak grove became the final resting place for two Prussian families who journeyed to Texas in the 1850s. They…

  • St. Ann's Cemetery · 5.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Hochheim, Texas, and you're passing St. Ann's Cemetery. This burial ground started as a small family plot for the Poth family way back in 1891. Valentine Hoch had settled here in 1845, and by…

  • Site of Beasley School · 5.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of what was once Beasley School, a hub for this part of Lavaca County. Back in 1885, kids here learned their lessons in a single room at the Broom Weed school. By 1890, the Beasleys opened…

  • Pilot Grove Church and Cemetery · 5.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Pilot Grove, a community named for a stand of trees. About 1875, John Wesley Vick and his family settled here. When the community needed a burial ground, Vick donated an acre of his land, asking only…

  • Bennett Cemetery · 5.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Bennett Cemetery, a final resting place for pioneers who settled this part of Texas. Stephen and Mary Ann Bennett arrived here from South Carolina around 1841, part of a wagon train to the…

  • Shiner Brethren Church · 6.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Lavaca County, near Shiner, where Czech immigrants settled in the mid-1880s. They came from rural areas in the Austro-Hungarian Empire, seeking a place to establish their Brethren faith in a new,…

  • Shiner Brethren Cemetery · 6.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Shiner Brethren Cemetery, established way back in 1890. It was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2002.

  • County Line School, Church, and Cemetery · 7.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past County Line School, Church, and Cemetery. The County Line School was housed in five different buildings on six different sites, beginning in the 1860s. In 1898, the County Line School District…

  • West-Wagner Homestead · 8.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the West-Wagner Homestead, a place that saw Texas ranching history unfold. In 1854, Washington and Mary West settled here, and their home soon became a stagecoach stop, growing into the…

  • Mount Zion Baptist Church · 8.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Mount Zion Baptist Church. Organized in 1869 with fifteen members, the congregation worshiped in several locations before permanently settling here in 1890. The church was guided by only…

  • Old Sweet Home · 8.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Lavaca County, past the site of Old Sweet Home. This community was settled in the mid-1800s, and by 1852, it had a post office and a laid-out town. It was a key stop on the old Spanish trail…

  • Hochheim Cemetery · 8.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Hochheim Cemetery, a final resting place for many who shaped this part of Texas. Land for this graveyard was donated by Rachel S. Crawford back in <say-as interpret-as="date"…

  • Cuero I Archeological District · 8.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the Guadalupe River Basin, a place that tells a story stretching back 9,000 years! This area, known as the Cuero I Archeological District, was preserved when a proposed reservoir threatened to…

  • Hochheim · 8.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Hochheim, a community that got its start back in 1856, right along the old Austin-Indianola Road. It grew around Valentine Hoch's home and stage stand. By 1864, a German Methodist Church was…

  • Hochheim, TX · 8.8 mi

    Hochheim sits nestled in the heart of DeWitt County, where the land begins to roll and ripple after the flat coastal plains further south. This isn't dramatic hill country, but the subtle changes in elevation are…

  • Stagecoach Inn · 8.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising through Hochheim, and right here is the site of the Stagecoach Inn, built way back in 1856. Imagine this: hand-quarried native stone, a vital stop on the busy Austin-Indianola Stage Road. While the…

  • Stagecoach Inn, 1856 · 8.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising through Hochheim, and right here is the Stagecoach Inn, built in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1856</say-as>! This stone structure was built by V. Hoch himself, using local stone. Imagine this…

  • Shiner-Welhausen Homestead · 8.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Shiner-Welhausen Homestead. Back in 1875, Henry B. Shiner bought this land to build his cattle ranch. Then, in 1887, the railroad came through, and Shiner donated land for a townsite…

  • Sarah Creath McSherry Hibbens Stinnett Howard · 9.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Lavaca County, passing the story of Sarah Howard, a woman who truly knew the Texas frontier's savagery. Born in Illinois, Sarah arrived in Texas in 1828 with her first husband, John McSherry. Just…

  • Dinosaur Bones and a Country Store Under One Roof · 9.1 mi

    At 306 South Avenue I you'll find one of the most charmingly cluttered small-town museums in Texas, the Edwin Wolters Memorial Museum, named for a respected Shiner businessman and run by the city. There's no single…

  • Shiner - Edwin Wolters Memorial Museum · 9.1 mi · Web Research

    On the corner of South Avenue I sits the Edwin Wolters Memorial Museum. It was built in nineteen fifteen, not as a museum, but as the Wolters family home. The Wolters were one of the founding families of Shiner, part of…

  • A Painted Church Built by Immigrant Hands · 9.2 mi

    At 306 South Avenue F rises one of Texas's celebrated Painted Churches, Sts. Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church. The congregation's Czech and German Catholic families chose the name deliberately: Cyril and Methodius…

  • Surviving Prohibition with Near Beer and Ice · 9.2 mi · Things to Do

    When Prohibition hit in 1920 most breweries across America shut their doors forever. Not Kosmos Spoetzl. He kept the Shiner brewery alive by officially…

  • The Shiner Hobo Band · 9.2 mi · Things to Do

    After World War I the town of Shiner did what any proud small Texas town would do -- it formed a band. But not just any band. The Shiner Hobo Band dressed in…

  • Shiner - Painted Churches Country · 9.3 mi · Web Research

    You are inside the Painted Churches country of Texas. Right here in Shiner is Saints Cyril and Methodius, one of the largest of the painted churches, with stained glass made in Munich and a huge mural of Christ in the…

  • The Only Female Brewery Owner in America · 9.3 mi · Things to Do

    When Kosmos Spoetzl died in 1950 his daughter Cecile -- known as Miss Celie -- took over the brewery. She became the only female brewery owner in the entire…

  • When Hippies Discovered Shiner Beer · 9.3 mi · Things to Do

    For its first 60 years Shiner Beer barely left the county. Then in the 1970s something unexpected happened. At the Armadillo World Headquarters in Austin an…

  • Patek's Market, Where the Sausage Still Hangs · 9.3 mi

    If you want to taste old Shiner instead of just read about it, pull up to Patek's Grocery & Market at 224 South Avenue E. A Patek opened a grocery and meat market here in 1937, selling staples and smoked meats to a…

  • The Town That Swallowed Half Moon · 9.3 mi · Things to Do

    Before Shiner existed there was a little community called Half Moon named for the peculiar crescent shape of the local timber. Half Moon had been around since…

  • Saint Ludmila's Academy · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Saint Ludmila's Academy in Shiner. Built in 1896 by local contractors, this French-style building was the first Catholic school in town. It opened in February 1897, run by the Sisters of the…

  • Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church · 9.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Saints Cyril and Methodius Catholic Church, a landmark in Shiner! German and Czech settlers here once worshipped in homes or drove miles to other towns. But in 1890, Father John Forest established a…

  • The Beer That Tasted Like Medicine · 9.4 mi · Things to Do

    In 1909 a group of homesick German and Czech farmers in tiny Shiner Texas pooled their money built a ramshackle brewery and tried to make beer that reminded…

  • The Brewmaster from Egypt · 9.4 mi · Things to Do

    Kosmos Spoetzl took one of the strangest paths to small-town Texas. Born in Bavaria he trained at brewmaster school in Germany then spent eight years brewing…

  • The Cleanest Little City in America · 9.4 mi · Things to Do

    Shiner Texas has long claimed the title of Cleanest Little City in America and they take it seriously. The town of just over two thousand people keeps its…

  • The Sausage Capital · 9.4 mi · Things to Do

    Shiner isnt just about beer -- its a sausage town to its core. Czech and German immigrants brought their old-world butchering traditions and Shiner became home…

  • Eighty-Two Years of Texas Only · 9.4 mi · Things to Do

    For its first 82 years of existence Shiner Beer was only sold in Texas. If you didnt live in the Lone Star State you simply could not get it. The first…

  • First Methodist Church of Shiner · 9.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the First Methodist Church of Shiner. Organized way back in 1887, this congregation started life as a mission church, served by traveling preachers. Imagine this: in 1889, a local rancher donated a…

  • Stratton · 9.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Stratton, a community that bloomed before the Civil War. It was named for John Stratton, a local landowner and saddler. By the late 1800s, Stratton boasted a post office, general store,…

  • The Brewery That Beer Built · 9.5 mi

    In 1909, a group of Shiner's German and Czech residents, tired of the warm, inconsistent beer available in Texas, formed the Shiner Brewing Association. For five years, it was a modest local operation. Then, in 1914, a…

  • Brewing with Ancient Water · 9.5 mi

    The secret to Shiner beer isn't just the recipe; it's the water. The consistent, unique taste comes from a source deep beneath the brewery itself. Since its earliest days, the Spoetzl Brewery has drawn its water from…

  • The Cathedral of the Prairie · 9.5 mi

    As you pass through Shiner you might notice a Catholic church grander than a town this size should support. That is Saints Cyril and Methodius, and it is a monument to the Czech and Moravian families who made this…

  • The Town Built by the Train · 9.5 mi

    The road you're on, Highway 90A, follows the railroad that made this town - and unmade another one. There was already a place here: a trading post with a post office called Half Moon, opened in 1885. Then the San…

  • Concrete College · 9.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Concrete College, a respected school in its day, operating from 1865 to 1881 near Cuero. Founded by educator and minister Rev. John Van Epps Covey, it offered everything from primary to…

  • The Pitcher They Called Pencil · 9.6 mi

    Shiner put a man in the big leagues and he never really left town. Carroll Sembera was on Shiner's first Little League all star team in 1952, and as a sophomore at Shiner High he struck out twenty four batters in a…

  • Forty Years of Service, and He's Only Going as Far as the Yard · 9.6 mi

    Shiner is changing police chiefs, and the man stepping down is not going anywhere. Wayne Denson set October 12 as his last day with the City of Shiner, closing out three years as chief of the Shiner Police Department…

  • Shiner, TX · 9.6 mi

    Shiner, Texas, sits just a bit higher than the flatlands further south, a small rise in the landscape that feels like a rise in time as well. It’s a place where the past hasn’t just vanished; it lingers in the air, in…

  • The Woman Who Saw the Comet Twice · 9.6 mi

    In June of 1910 a reporter from the Shiner Gazette sat down with Jemima Howe Carnes, who was about to turn eighty six, and she said something worth keeping. Halley's comet was in the sky that year and everyone was…

  • He Gave the Railroad the Ground for Nothing · 9.6 mi

    Before there was a Shiner there was Joseph Kopecky, out on Rocky Creek about a quarter mile from where the town would stand. He was the first Bohemian resident of this part of Lavaca County and one of its first settlers…

  • The Saddle Maker Who Gave the Town Its Park · 9.6 mi

    Charles Welhausen came off a ship at Galveston in 1843, a boy from Hanover. The family tried Cat Spring, then High Hill, and he learned to make saddles. He went into the Confederate army at the start of the war, served…

  • The Creek North of Town Is Named for a Man Who Died On It · 9.6 mi

    Four miles north of Shiner the highway crosses Ponton Creek, and there is a family behind that name. William and Isabella Ponton came down from Missouri in 1829, Virginians originally, and took land in DeWitt's colony…

  • The First Nail in Shiner · 9.6 mi

    Somebody has to be first, and in Shiner the claim belongs to a lumber merchant named C. L. Williams. He moved here on the fifteenth of November and opened the first business in the place, which was a lumber yard, and he…

  • He Remembered When the Town Was a Field · 9.6 mi

    Edmund Herder was Shiner's postmaster, and he could remember standing on the site of the town when it was unbroken prairie and nothing else. He watched the entire place appear around him. Before he ran the post office…

  • The Fifth Business in Town · 9.6 mi

    Here is a way to measure how new a town is. When Wolters Brothers opened in Shiner in 1888, it was the fifth business to do so. Not the fifth dry goods store. The fifth business, of any kind. You could still have…

  • The Only Girl in the Class of 1914 · 9.6 mi

    Leonida Schuhmann was born in Shiner in 1896 and adopted by the Wager family when she was five months old. She graduated from Shiner High School in 1914 as the only girl in her graduating class, went off to college in…

  • A Saloon Downstairs and an Opera House Up · 9.6 mi

    On the corner of Seventh and Avenue D there is a building two men put up in 1895, and the arrangement inside tells you how a small town does culture. The ground floor was the Opera House Saloon, and later other…

  • Piano, Guitar, Mandolin, German and Czech · 9.6 mi

    The first Catholic school in Shiner went up in 1896, a two story frame building with two classrooms, a dining room and a kitchen downstairs and the Sisters living upstairs. It opened in February 1897 with fifty seven…

  • The Dog Trot House and the Post Office Called Winnton · 9.6 mi

    William Green and his wife India came from Kentucky and built a house on this land in 1853, more than thirty years before Shiner existed. It is a dog trot: two main rooms with an open hall running between them, which is…

  • Cotton Industry in Shiner · 9.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Shiner, a town built on cotton! For nearly 80 years, this industry was the lifeblood of Lavaca County. It started in 1892 with August Stephan's first cotton gin, and by the 1920s, Shiner boasted…

  • The Beer Law That Left Out an Ingredient Nobody Knew About · 9.6 mi

    The name Shiner comes off a man — Henry B. Shiner donated the land for the depot in eighteen eighty-seven — but there is a brewery in this town that has been running since nineteen oh nine, so beer is fair territory…

  • Lager Is Not a Flavor, It’s an Instruction · 9.6 mi

    You are in Shiner, and there has been a brewery running here since nineteen oh nine, so here is the beer tangent. The word lager is not a taste. It is a verb. Lagern is German for to store, and that is the whole…

  • Bock Means Goat, and It’s a Misunderstanding · 9.6 mi

    Since you are in Shiner, here is a beer tangent about a word you have almost certainly said out loud. Bock. In German it means billy goat, which is why bock labels have been carrying pictures of goats for a century and…

  • Until 1883, Every Batch of Beer Was a Gamble · 9.6 mi

    There has been a brewery in Shiner since nineteen oh nine, so here is a beer tangent about the single invention that made a brewery like it possible. For nearly all of brewing history, beer spoiled and nobody knew why.…

  • The Purity Law Was Really About Bread · 9.6 mi

    Shiner is named for Henry B. Shiner, who gave the land for the depot — not for beer. But there has been a brewery running here since nineteen oh nine, so here is another beer tangent, and this one is really about grain.…

  • A Pony Keg on a Bicycle, at Midnight, in 1933 · 9.7 mi

    Prohibition should have finished this place. It finished most American breweries, and this one was a small operation in a town of a couple thousand people that had already nearly failed once before Kosmos Spoetzl took…

  • The Bavarian Who Saved Shiner's Beer · 9.7 mi

    At 603 East Brewery Street stands the oldest independent brewery in Texas, and it nearly died in its first five years. A group of Shiner businessmen founded the Shiner Brewing Association in 1909 to serve the town's…

  • The Hall of Famer Born by the Tracks · 9.7 mi

    One of the greatest outfielders in early baseball was born right here on April 10, 1897. Ross Youngs came into the world in Shiner, where his father worked for the railroad until an injury sidelined him, and the family…

  • The Shiner Song and the Patek Polka Dynasty · 9.7 mi

    Shiner gave Texas its unofficial Czech anthem. John Patek Sr. immigrated from Moravia in the late 1880s as an accomplished musician, and in 1920 he formed the Patek Band of Shiner. His son Joseph, born in Shiner in…

  • From Half Moon to Shiner · 9.7 mi

    The town you're rolling into almost had a different name and a different location. In 1885 a trading post and post office opened a couple of miles away under the name Half Moon, said to come from a curving, half-moon…

  • The Lenten Beer That Took Over the Brewery · 9.7 mi

    Shiner Bock wasn't always the year-round Texas icon it is now. In the old Bavarian tradition Kosmos Spoetzl carried to Shiner, bock was a strong, dark lager brewed mainly for spring, and for decades the brewery here…

  • First National Bank of Shiner · 9.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the First National Bank of Shiner. Back in 1891, Confederate Captain Charles Welhausen saw a need in this growing railroad town and opened his own private bank. He served as its first…

  • Shiner - Miss Celie, the Woman Who Saved the Brewery · 9.8 mi · Web Research

    Right here at the Spoetzl Brewery, there's a name most folks have never heard: Cecile Spoetzl. They called her Miss Celie. She was Kosmos Spoetzl's daughter, and when Prohibition hit in the nineteen twenties, her father…

  • Shiner - Spoetzl Brewery · 9.8 mi · Historical Marker

    In 1909, Czech and German farmers in Lavaca County pooled their money to build a brewery because they were tired of bad beer. The Shiner Brewing Association started in a wooden building with second-hand equipment and a…

  • Spoetzl Brewery · 9.8 mi · Things to Do

    Home of Shiner beer since 1909. Free tours and tastings in tiny Shiner Texas.

  • Shiner - Half Moon Holidays Festival · 9.8 mi · Web Research

    Every year on the first full weekend of July, Shiner throws a festival called Half Moon Holidays. The name is a callback. Before the railroad came through in eighteen eighty seven, the German and Czech farming community…

  • The Square Block at the Heart of Town · 9.8 mi

    One block west of downtown along Avenue E sits Welhausen Park, a single tidy square block that has been the social center of Shiner for generations. The land and the name trace to the Welhausen family, German immigrants…

  • Shiner · 9.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Shiner, Texas, a town born from a railroad and a landowner's generosity. It started a bit west as a German-Czech community called Half Moon. But when the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad arrived…

  • Masonic Lodge Building · 9.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the original Masonic Lodge building in Shiner. David Kokernot moved this structure here in 1889, intending it for both the Methodist church and the Masons. Interestingly, the first local…

  • San Pedro Cemetery · 9.8 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the San Pedro Cemetery, established in 1920. It was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2012.

  • Green, William, House · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the William Green House, a classic example of pioneer Texas architecture. Built in 1853 by William and India Green, who came all the way from Kentucky, this dog-trot style home was typical for its…

  • Welhausen Park Bandstand · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Shiner, and right here is Welhausen Park, home to a bandstand built way back in 1913. Imagine this spot buzzing with activity! Local women's groups raised the money for this classic…

  • Shiner Opera House · 9.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Shiner, and you're passing the historic Shiner Opera House! Built back in 1895 by Wendtland and Wagener, this place was the heart of the town. Upstairs, it hosted everything from plays and dances…

  • Part One: Why Barley Has to Be Tricked Into Spring · 10.0 mi

    There has been a brewery running in Shiner since nineteen oh nine, so here is the first of five on how the stuff in the can actually gets made. Start with a problem: yeast cannot eat barley. The grain keeps its energy…

  • Part Two: The Hour That Turns Starch Into Sugar · 10.0 mi

    Second of five on how beer gets made, in the town that has been doing it since nineteen oh nine. The malt is cracked open and stirred into hot water, here drawn from the brewery's own artesian well. That porridge is the…

  • Part Three: What the Boil Is Really For · 10.0 mi

    Third of five on how beer is made, in the town that has been making it since nineteen oh nine. The wort now goes into a kettle and boils hard for about an hour, doing several jobs at once. It sterilises, which matters…

  • Patek, Joseph · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving near Shiner, the heart of Texas Czech polka country. Right here, the Patek Orchestra, led by Joe Patek, became a Texas legend. Starting with his father in the 1920s, the band evolved, with Joe taking over…

  • Marketed by a traveling hobo band · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Shiner, Texas, the home of a brewery that's been a Texas institution for over a century. It all started back in 1909 when local businessmen wanted to appeal to the area's Bohemian settlers. The…

  • Spoetzl Brewery · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    The Spoetzl Brewery, also known as the Shiner Brewing Association, headquartered in Shiner, Texas, produces beer characterized by its carmelized quality. Private label brews produced by Spoetzl include Texas Tap,…

  • Part Four: What the Yeast Is Actually Doing · 10.0 mi

    Fourth of five on how beer gets made, in the Texas town that has been at it since nineteen oh nine. Everything so far has been cooking. Malting, mashing and boiling are an elaborate way of making sweet, sterile, bitter…

  • Spoetzl Brewery · 10.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising through Shiner, Texas, and right here is a landmark for beer lovers: the Spoetzl Brewery. Built by a local stock company, it was sold in April 1915 to Kosmas Spoetzl, a Bavarian immigrant who'd even run…

  • Kaspar Wire Works · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Shiner, Texas, home to a company that started with discarded wire! Back in 1898, August Kaspar saw potential in old smooth wire, the kind used before barbed wire took over. He started making wire…

  • Shiner, TX · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Shiner, Texas, a town born from a railway dispute. It all started in 1885 with a post office called Half Moon. But when the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway arrived in 1887, it built its…

  • Youngs, Ross Middlebrook [Pep] · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    Ross Middlebrook "Pep" Youngs, professional baseball player, was born on April 10, 1897, in Shiner, Texas, to Stonewall Jackson "Jack" Youngs and Henrie (Middlebrook) Youngs. (Some sources have erroneously given his…

  • Part Five: The Weeks of Cold Nobody Sees · 10.0 mi

    Last of five on how beer is made, in the town that has been making it since nineteen oh nine. The yeast has finished and there is alcohol in the tank, and the beer is still not ready, because of what fermentation leaves…

  • Welhausen, Captain Charles · 10.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a man who came a long way to make his mark. Charles Welhausen arrived in Texas from Germany in 1843, eventually becoming a saddle maker. But when the Civil War broke out, he traded his…

  • Welhausen, Charles · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through Fayette County, or maybe Lavaca County, and right here is the story of Charles Welhausen. Born in Germany, he came to Texas as a boy and settled in Fayette County. When the Civil War broke out, he…

  • Terryville · 10.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through DeWitt County, heading past the site of Terryville. This community sprang up near here in the 1850s, named for the Terry family. They were prominent folks, with James D. Terry serving as county…

  • Gruenau, TX · 10.0 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through DeWitt County, and right here is the area known as Gruenau, settled by German immigrants starting in 1872. The name itself means 'green meadow' in German, a nod to the rolling prairie. These folks…

  • United Evangelical Lutheran Dr. Martin Luther Church · 10.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the United Evangelical Lutheran Dr. Martin Luther Church in Shiner. Organized in 1896 by Rev. Wilhelm Dziewas, it was initially known as Dziewas Kirche. The congregation grew and merged…

  • Pasture Wire to USA Today's Newsracks · 10.1 mi

    Shiner's most surprising engineering story started with junk wire pulled off the prairie. Around 1895 August Kaspar, a Fayette County ranch hand who had moved to Shiner, noticed that the old smooth fencing wire being…

  • Kaspar Wire Works · 10.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Kaspar Wire Works, a Texas success story born from discarded materials. It all started in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1895</say-as> when August Kaspar, son of a Swiss…

  • Hope Baptist Church · 10.1 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Hope Baptist Church, which started life as Shiloh Baptist Church way back in 1885. Eight members gathered in a place called Riggs Schoolhouse, meeting just once a month. Baptisms happened…

  • United Methodist Church of Hope · 10.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Yoakum, and right here is the site of the United Methodist Church of Hope. This congregation started with German pioneers even before 1845, meeting in a simple log hut. For decades, they…

  • Dr. William Watt White · 10.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Cuero, where Dr. William Watt White served as a surgeon for Waul's Legion in the Confederate Army. He came to Texas around 1850 and earned his medical degree in Philadelphia. During the Civil War, he…

  • Herder Half Moon Place · 10.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Herder Half Moon Place, a Greek Revival home built in the 1880s. Its builder, George Herder, was a veteran of the Texas Revolution, who came to farm and ranch in the Half Moon…

  • Half Moon · 10.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the area once known as Half Moon, a place named for the peculiar shape of its timber. First mentioned in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1689</say-as> by Spanish explorers, it was a…

  • Site of Bunjes School · 10.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the old Bunjes School, a testament to early Texas community spirit. Back in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1886</say-as>, local residents funded and built this schoolhouse…

  • Stevens Cemetery · 10.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through DeWitt County, near the site of the Stevens Cemetery. In 1846, Joseph and Sarah Ann Stevens arrived here from Mississippi, buying land to farm and raise cattle. The oldest marked grave belongs to…

  • Steen Cemetery · 10.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Steen Cemetery. The Steen family's migration west spanned several generations and included a friendship with the Davy Crockett family in Tennessee before they finally settled in Gonzales County in…

  • The Sheriff Who Won by Two Votes · 10.8 mi

    This run of Alternate United States Highway Ninety, from the east edge of Shiner to the west edge of Hallettsville, carries a name the legislature gave it in two thousand seventeen. It is the Sheriff Ronnie Dodds…

  • Eight State Championships, and the Record Is Theirs · 10.9 mi

    Shiner is known nationally for beer and locally for football, and neither is the most decorated thing in this town. That would be the softball program. The Lady Comanches have won the UIL state championship eight times:…

  • Thirty Straight Wins and the Brooks Brothers · 10.9 mi

    Under Daniel Boedeker, Shiner went 14-0 in 2020 and beat Post 42-20 at AT&T Stadium for the school's third state championship, then went 16-0 in 2021 and beat Hawley 47-12 for the fourth — 30 consecutive victories…

  • Shiner High School — State Softball 2026 · 10.9 mi

    Shiner High School in Shiner, Texas qualified for the 2026 UIL state softball championships, reaching the state tournament (final four) in Class two A, Division Two.

  • UIL 2A Football State Champions — 2 titles · 10.9 mi

    Shiner High School (Shiner, TX): Most recent: 47-12 over Hawley · 2021 2A Division 1 final.

  • Eight Shutouts and a Title: Shiner Breaks Through in 1986 · 10.9 mi

    Shiner won the first football state championship in school history on December 20, 1986, shutting out the Mart Panthers 18-0 for the Class 2A title at Lion Stadium in Leander. The Comanches finished 16-0 under Calvin…

  • One Point Short, Then Perfect: 2003 and 2004 · 10.9 mi

    Shiner lost the 2003 state championship game to Windthorst 28-27 — a one-point defeat sealed when a sophomore's extra-point attempt missed with 32 seconds left, right after quarterback Garet Pustka's three-yard…

  • Up 28-7 in the State Final, and It Still Got Away · 10.9 mi

    In the 2013 state championship game, Shiner led Stamford 21-7 at halftime and stretched it to 28-7. Stamford then scored 34 unanswered points and won 41-28; Shiner never scored again. Stamford quarterback Bo Wimberly…

  • The Same Kid Beat Them Twice: Shiner vs Muenster · 10.9 mi

    Shiner reached the state championship game in both 2024 and 2025 and lost both to Muenster. In the December 2024 final at AT&T Stadium, Shiner led 29-28 entering the fourth quarter before Muenster's Casen Carney scored…

  • SPJST Shiner Cemetery · 10.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the SPJST Shiner Cemetery, established in 1906 by Czech-Texan members of the lodge. This burial ground served SPJST members and their families, with services often held in the Czech language. Many…

  • Shiner Cemetery · 10.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past Shiner Cemetery, established in 1891. It was recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2002.

  • Shows, Nancy · 11.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Cuero, and just a bit west of here, pioneer Nancy Shows' husband, Adam, built Hebron Church around 1855. Nancy herself was the mother of eight children, a true matriarch on the Texas frontier. Her…

  • Hebron Community · 11.1 mi · Historical Marker

    Hey road-trippers! You're cruising through what used to be the Hebron community, a place that started way back in the 1840s with the first wagon train of settlers. These pioneers built their homes from local timber and…

  • George Washington Davis · 11.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through DeWitt County, heading towards Cuero. Back in 1831, a man named George Washington Davis packed up his family and moved all the way from Pennsylvania to this very area. He wasn't just looking for…

  • Wied School · 11.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're cruising through the Wied community, just outside Hallettsville. Look around – this area was settled by German immigrants starting in the 1830s, and Czech families joined them soon after. By 1895, this community…

  • Worthing · 11.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through what used to be the community of Worthing, a place that saw a lot of change after the Civil War. German and Czech immigrants moved in, farming corn and cotton. In 1882, Joseph Orsak started a…

  • John Himes Livergood · 11.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a man who lived a full century of Texas history. John Himes Livergood arrived in Texas in 1837, just in time to join the Republic's fight for survival. He chased Comanches after the Peach…

  • Lockhart Community Cemetery · 12.0 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Lockhart Community Cemetery, the oldest known African American burial ground in DeWitt County. Established in the 1800s, its earliest recorded burial was in 1884. This site, with its unique…

  • George W. Davis · 12.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of George W. Davis, a citizen soldier who fought for Texas's independence. Davis served during the pivotal years of 1835 and 1836, contributing to the struggle that would birth a republic.…

  • Kokernot, David L. · 12.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the Gonzales marker for David L. Kokernot. He was a soldier, officer, scout, and courier during the Texas War for Independence. Kokernot served valiantly in the fight for Texas freedom from 1835 to…

  • Littlefield, Hutson B. · 12.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the resting place of Hutson B. Littlefield, a volunteer soldier who fought for Texas independence. He served during the Texas War for Independence and is buried here in Gonzales. His service helped…

  • Vysehrad School · 12.5 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of the Vysehrad School, a testament to Czech heritage in Lavaca County. Established north of Worthing in 1887, its name means 'high castle' in Czech. Frank Jakubik taught in the original…

  • Buchel Community and School · 12.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through an area where settlers first arrived way back in 1839. A post office opened in 1842, just two years after the first school started near here. In 1894, Otto Buchel donated land for a community…

  • The Creek That Cannot Spell Its Own Name · 13.0 mi

    West of Hallettsville, United States Highway Ninety Alternate crosses a stream called Smothers Creek. The Handbook of Texas gives it thirteen miles and not an inch more. It rises about three miles west of Witting, up in…

  • The Meat Market at the Smothers Creek Crossing · 13.0 mi

    A hundred yards or so from where United States Highway Ninety Alternate crosses Smothers Creek, on the west side of Hallettsville, there is a meat market called Janak's. The family dates the business to nineteen…

  • Ebenezer Cemetery · 13.4 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through southern Gonzales County, passing the historic Ebenezer Cemetery. Founded in the 1850s, this burial ground served the Ebenezer community. Though the nearby Ebenezer Church closed in the early…

  • Chisholm Trail, Old · 13.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the historic route of the Chisholm Trail, a legendary path that helped rebuild Texas after the Civil War. On April 1, 1866, Crockett Cardwell and trail boss Thornton Chisholm, a DeWitt County native,…

  • Andrew Kent · 13.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the area where Andrew Kent settled his family in Texas back in 1830. He'd come all the way from Missouri with his wife Elizabeth and their ten children, drawn by empresario Green DeWitt's…

  • Friar-Caldwell Stage Stand · 13.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through DeWitt County, near where a vital hub for early Texas once stood. Back in 1839 or 1840, Daniel Boone Friar built a home and store right at the crossroads of major stagecoach routes. It quickly…

  • Ponton Family · 13.9 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Shiner, Texas, and right here is the story of the Ponton family, who arrived in Texas back in 1829. William Ponton was the very first settler in this area to be killed by Comanche Indians. His…

  • The Road His Son Grew Up On · 14.2 mi

    The Sergeant David M. Furrh Memorial Highway follows State Highway Ninety Five between Shiner and Moulton. David Furrh was born in Houston in nineteen sixty, and he spent seventeen years in law enforcement, with the…

  • Vollentine, Arthur Henry · 14.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through Lavaca County, heading past the final resting place of Arthur Henry Vollentine. He arrived in Texas around 1833, settling on a Mexican land grant near present-day Yoakum. Vollentine served in the…

  • St. Mary's Parish · 14.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of St. Mary's Parish, considered the oldest rural Catholic parish in Texas! It was settled even before the Texas War for Independence. One of its early pioneers, James Brown, even fought and…

  • Cameron · 14.2 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through DeWitt County, near Cuero. Back in June of <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1846</say-as>, this was the chosen spot for the very first county seat, named Cameron. It was named for Captain…

  • Ponton, Joel · 14.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Joel Ponton's homestead, a man who saw incredible things on the Texas frontier. Born in Virginia in <say-as interpret-as="date" format="y">1802</say-as>, Ponton arrived in Texas in…

  • Sulphur Park · 14.3 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Sulphur Park, a concrete swimming pool and rec area built in 1930 by Jake Kurtz. Fed by mineral water from a 73-foot well, the 120-foot pool was the heart of a summer oasis with picnic…

  • William Smothers · 14.6 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of a true Texas pioneer and American hero! William Smothers was a veteran of the American Revolution, fighting in famous battles like King's Mountain and Guilford Courthouse. After the war,…

  • Brown School · 14.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving through the St. Mary's farming community, near Hallettsville. Look to your right for the site of the Brown School, founded in 1894 when Benedict Brown deeded land for a public school. For decades, this…

  • Site of Evergreen School · 14.7 mi · Historical Marker

    You're driving past the site of Evergreen School, a community hub that served rural Lavaca County for over fifty years. It all started in 1897 when trustees bought two acres for a schoolhouse. By 1903, they'd added more…

  • Jack, Spencer Houston · 14.9 mi · Tsha Handbook

    You're driving through what was once Austin's second colony, near present-day Lavaca County. Right here, back in 1831, Spencer Houston Jack became the first colonist to draw Mexican blood in resistance to Mexican…

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