Name: Concan, Texas
Address: Concan, TX

Concan, TX RoadyGoat

The land around Concan, that’s what makes it special. You’re up at 1,250 feet, which doesn't sound like much, but it's enough to give you a view of the whole Hill Country rolling out before you. It's rugged country, carved out by the Frio over millennia, even though some floods have dramatically reshaped the riverbed. Ashe juniper clings to the hillsides, their scent sharp in the dry air. You can almost feel the weight of time here, the slow grinding of water against stone. It makes sense that this place would become a refuge. Even the name, "Concan," echoes its history as a deer camp, a place apart. Highway 83 winds through it all, a thread connecting small towns and big skies. It’s a place where stories linger – tales of lost gold, buried by stagecoach robbers, and the fierce pride of Friday night football rivalries between neighboring towns. Maybe that’s why his music feels so true to the heart of Texas. It’s a place that stays with you, long after you’ve left the cool water and the juniper-scented air.

Concan, TX RoadyGoat

Concan, nestled in the Hill Country at a comfortable 1,250 feet, really does feel like stepping away from the world. Highway 83 winds you in, past slopes dotted with Ashe juniper, and suddenly you're in a place where the Frio River dictates the pace. It's quiet now, but back in 1884, when they named it Concan — from the Spanish for deer camp — this was a different kind of crossroads. Even before then, maybe. Folks still whisper about that stagecoach, the one supposedly carrying gold, ambushed somewhere near here. The gold, they say, is still buried. But the real treasure of Concan isn't buried; it's the people it's produced.

Concan, TX RoadyGoat

Concan. The name itself whispers of history, doesn't it? They say it comes from the Spanish "con canas," meaning deer camp. And that makes sense when you look around. This whole area, nestled at 1,250 feet, has always been a refuge. Even before 1884, when the town officially got its name, people were drawn to the Frio River, to the shade of the Ashe juniper. Highway 83, now a scenic route, likely followed old trails carved out by necessity and the promise of something better further west. You can almost picture those early settlers, their wagons bumping along, hoping this place would be their haven. Of course, life along the Frio hasn't always been easy. The river that gives life can also take it away. Floods have ravaged this area time and again, reshaping the landscape and reminding everyone of nature's power. And there's the legend of the stagecoach robbery, the gold still buried somewhere nearby – a tantalizing reminder of fortunes sought and sometimes lost. Still, there's a resilience here. Neal's Lodges, a fixture on the river for generations, speaks to that. And even the fierce football rivalries with neighboring towns tell a story of community, of pride in place.

Silver Mine Pass

1700

Named for silver mine opened near pass by Spaniards in 1700s or earlier. Ore was inferior, and mine was abandoned; but 14 shafts (some interconnecting) remain. Near the mine are remnants of a fortification made by 30 men under the leadership of James Bowie, later (1836) a hero of the siege to the Alamo. In 1831, while at work at this mine, Bowie's men repulsed a Comanche attack in a fierce, all-day battle. Hero of the fight was Bowie's slave, "Black Jim Bowie," who risked his life by leaving the fortification to bring water to the besieged. 1968

Historical Marker →

Saltpetre Mine, C.S.A.

1860

Important to Texas in waging the Civil War. Site of natural deposits of bat guano, worked in the 1860s to obtain the chief ingredient for gunpowder. Cave inhabited by bats, source of the guano, extends about 23 miles. One room in the great bat den is 585' x 325', and has a 45' ceiling. A narrow gauge railway with mule drawn cars was used in the digging. Corrals for the mules occupied one chamber of the cave. Putrefied and dried bat guano, mixed with smaller parts of sulphur and charcoal, gave firepower to Civil War guns. 1965

Historical Marker →

Old Davenport Home

1884

Originally an early settler's 1-room log house on the Dry Frio (1 mi. N), built in era of Lipan-Apache raids and infestation of this frontier by outlaws. Enlarged for his family of 12 by L. C. ("Clabe") Davenport, who moved here about 1884. Added were a second log room, a hall, stone rooms on rear. After cattleman Davenport prospered and built a frame home, the old cabin still was used as kitchen, dining room and guest rooms. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1967.

Historical Marker → · 3.3 mi away

Kincaid Site

-11000

Kincaid Site (Kincaid Rockshelter, Kincaid Shelter, 41UV2) is an archeological site near the Sabinal River in Uvalde County consisting of a rockshelter and an open area in front of the shelter. Stratified deposits in both areas contained archeological materials attributable to most of the regional prehistoric sequence, and a small number of historic objects of late nineteenth and twentieth century age were found in the shelter. A great hole was dug in the center of the rockshelter sometime in the 1940s, evidently by treasure-hunters, because in December of 1947 three students (Charles E. Mear, David S. Proper, and James Churchwell) from Southwest Texas State Teachers College at San Marcos found the dirt from the hole to be rich in artifacts. Mear with occasional help from Kenneth Rochat recovered artifacts from that dirt over the next several months until, upon finding Folsom Points of Paleoindian age, he reported the site to professional archeologists. An excavation of the rockshelter portion of the site was mounted in 1948 by a team from the Texas Memorial Museum led by Elias H. Sellards and Glen L. Evans. Their work defined six geologic strata and an artificial stone pavement in the shelter. From the base upward these are: (Stratum 1) river silt in excess of 1.8 m thick without artifacts or fossils; (Stratum 2) another silt deposit 1 m thick without artifacts, but the fossilized jaw of an extinct horse was found; (Stratum 3) a deposit of clay 0.5 m thick, highly plastic when wet, that formed in a spring-fed pool and contained fossil bones of extinct mammoth, jaguar, another cat, ground sloth, horse, camel, bison, wolf, antelope, raccoon, alligator, and turtles; (Stone Pavement) a large quantity of boulders from the Sabinal River had been carefully placed across the top of the clay while it was still wet and plastic as evidenced by the stones being partly embedded in the clay; (Stratum 4) a layer of gritty clay rested directly on the stone pavement and contained a small number of stone artifacts as well as the bones of slider turtle, alligator, pocket mouse, badger, raccoon, box turtle, horse, and mammoth; (Stratum 5) a cultural midden deposit close to 1 m in average thickness composed of ashy, silty dust, fire-cracked rocks, broken and burned bones, mussel shells, and prehistoric artifacts; (Stratum 6) a 70 cm thick midden deposit of loose ashy dust, charcoal, burned rock, bone, shell, pottery, and various artifacts of stone from the prehistoric period as well as a few pieces of metal and glass of the early historic period. On top of stratum 6 at the time the shelter was investigated were several piles of disturbed fill that had been dug up by persons evidently in search of treasure thought to be buried in the shelter. These piles contained mixed artifacts of different ages. Strata 1–3 are culturally sterile. The Stone Pavement and the artifacts in the lower part of Stratum 4 are identified as being of Clovis cultural affiliation. In the upper part of Stratum 4 Sellards and Evans found a partial skeleton of a fossilized bison believed to correspond to other bison bones and five Folsom points found in fill from the large treasure-hunters' pit. Stratum 5 artifacts are diagnostic of most of the long Archaic period, and Stratum 6 cultural materials belong predominantly to the Late Prehistoric and the Historic periods. Kincaid rockshelter provides important evidence that its Clovis occupants built the stone pavement, manufactured stone tools, and consumed a variety of large and small animals probably near 11,000 years ago. Among the Clovis artifacts is the base of a biface made of obsidian identified by trace-element analysis as originating in the state of Querétaro, Mexico, 1,000 km south of the site. A short time later, probably near 10,500 years ago, a bison wounded with at least five Folsom projectiles evidently died in the shelter but was not retrieved by the hunters who wounded it. Throughout the remainder of its estimated

Tsha Handbook → · 10.7 mi away

Blewett, TX

1888

Blewett, a mining community originally known as Carbonville, is on Farm Road 1022 and Turkey Creek five miles southeast of Cline in far southwestern Uvalde County. Outcroppings of limestone rock asphalt cover 50,000 to 60,000 acres in the area. The Lathe Carbon Company, formed, according to one source, by a group of New York capitalists, opened a bitumen mine at the site in 1888. Failure to sell its bitumen, in a market limited to the paint and varnish industry, forced the company to close before its second year. Beaumont capitalist John Blewett Smyth, for whom the community was probably named, used bituminous limestone to develop a new road-paving material in 1912. The first production of limestone rock asphalt for street and road surfacing began at the Blewett location in 1912. A post office opened at the community in 1928, two years after it had become the terminus of a spur line from the Texas and New Orleans Railroad at Cline. The township is often designated as Mine No. 2 to distinguish it from Smyth Mine No. 1, a mile distant. High-grade commercial asphalt was produced at an average annual rate of 1,250,000 tons during peak production in 1927, and 125,000 tons during the 1930s. By 1940 many of Blewett's buildings had been abandoned, though a school and a commissary were still in operation there. Although the community reported an estimated population of only fifty in 1940, some evidence suggests that it had as many as 500 residents during periods of peak operation at the mines. In 1948 Blewett had the asphalt mine, a nine-section group dwelling, a hotel or tourist camp, one additional business, a school, and a scattering of residences. Although the Missouri Pacific rail service to Uvalde was discontinued in April 1966, the railroad continued service to the Uvalde Rock Asphalt Company and White's Uvalde Mines near Blewett. By 1988 Blewett had an estimated population of twenty-five and two businesses, one of which housed the post office. The population was still reported as twenty-five in 1990, but dropped to ten in 2000.

Tsha Handbook → · 10.7 mi away

Fort Inge

1849

Fort Inge (Camp Leona) is on the east bank of the Leona River a mile south of Uvalde in southern Uvalde County. The site is dominated by Mount Inge, a 140-foot volcanic plug of Uvalde phonolite basalt. Archeological evidence indicates the place has been intermittently occupied since the Pre-Archaic period, about 6,000 B.C. It is possible that ranching occurred there in the Spanish colonial and Mexican periods ( see SPANISH TEXAS , MEXICAN TEXAS ). On March 13, 1849, frontier artist Capt. Seth Eastman and fifty-six soldiers of companies D and I, First United States Infantry, established camp on the Leona, four miles above Woll's Crossing. In December 1849 the post was renamed Fort Inge in honor of Lt. Zebulon M. P. Inge, United States Second Dragoons, a West Point officer killed at the Mexican War battle of Resaca de la Palma . Fort Inge was established as a part of the first federal line of frontier forts in Texas. It was to serve as a base of operations for army troops and Texas militia. The missions of the soldiers included security patrols for the construction of the San Antonio-El Paso military road, escorts for supply trains and mail, protection for frontier settlements from bandits and Indian raiders, and guarding the international boundary with Mexico. The fort was a typical one-company, fifty-man post for most of its history. For a brief period in 1854 it was the regimental headquarters for the United States Mounted Rifle Regiment with a garrison of 200. One staff inspector reported that Fort Inge "is justly regarded as one of the most important and desirable positions in Texas. No station of the line possesses so many advantages as this . . . in point of wood, water, and soil . . . It is pre-eminent as a military site. [It is in] a state of constant warfare and constant service." Army units and officers of the post include the First Infantry Regiment (1849); Capt. William J. Hardee and Company C, Second Dragoons (1849-52); William A. A. (Bigfoot) Wallace 's Texas Ranging Company (1850); the United States Mounted Rifle Regiment, under Col. William Wing Loring and captains Gordon Granger and John G. Walker (1852-55); and the Second United States Cavalry , with Capt. Edmund Kirby Smith and including lieutenants Fitzhugh Lee , Zenas R. Bliss , and William B. (Wild Bill) Hazen and physicians Solomon Clark Warren and Robert L. Brodie, Jr. (1856-61). During the Civil War the post was occupied by Confederate and state units including Walter P. Lane 's rangers; Company A, C.S.A. Cavalry; and John J. Dix 's company, Norris Frontier Regiment. The fort was reoccupied by federal troops in 1866, and its final garrisons included Company K, Fourth United States Cavalry (1866-68); Company L, Ninth United States Cavalry ; and Lt. John L. Bullis and Company D, Forty-first Infantry (1868-69). The Ninth Cavalry and Forty-first Infantry were Black units. The dozen buildings of the post were arranged around the rectangular parade ground with an enclosed stable at the south end of the post. The most substantial building was constructed of cut limestone and was used as a hospital and later as a storehouse. Most structures were of jacal construction-upright log pickets plastered with mud and whitewashed. A low, dry-stacked stone wall was built around the fort during or after the Civil War. The establishment of the post in 1849 immediately attracted a number of farmers to the area. In 1853 Reading Wood Black bought land a mile upstream and began the settlement of Encina in 1855. The community was renamed Uvalde in 1856. Fort Inge was closed for federal service on March 19, 1869, and the garrison transferred to Fort McKavett. In 1871 United States troops returned to tear down some of the buildings and recover the timber and stone to be used in construction at Fort Clark. The site was used as a camp by the Texas Rangers until 1884. It was farmland until 1961, when it became Fort Inge Historical Site County Park. From 1980 to 1982 the Uvalde Count

Tsha Handbook → · 10.7 mi away

Concan, Texas

Music in Concan

Songs About Concan

Artists From Concan

Rivers & Roads in Song near Concan

History of Concan

Concan, TX RoadyGoat

Concan, TX RoadyGoat

Concan, TX RoadyGoat

Silver Mine Pass

Saltpetre Mine, C.S.A.

Old Davenport Home

Kincaid Site

Blewett, TX

Fort Inge

Things to Do in Concan

Everything Near Concan