Name: Double Horn, Texas
Address: Double Horn, TX

The Falls Beneath the Lake RoadyGoat

1817

The town is named for falls you cannot see. Travelers marked the great falls of the Colorado River here as early as 1817. The rock was a hard blue-hearted limestone, so glossy that people mistook it for marble, and the name stuck even though there was never any true marble. The falls dropped about 50 feet through three ledges at the head of a canyon. Then, in the mid twentieth century, the Lower Colorado River Authority dammed the river for hydroelectric power. Max Starcke Dam, finished in 1951, backed up the water and drowned the falls under Lake Marble Falls, the smallest of the six Highland Lakes. The falls still exist down in the dark. Every few years, when the lake is drawn low, the old ledges break the surface and the town briefly meets its namesake again.

5.5 mi away

Pie Happy Hour RoadyGoat

1929

The Blue Bonnet Cafe has been feeding Marble Falls since 1929, when it opened on Main Street. In 1946 it moved to its long-time home on Highway 281, a few blocks from the lake, and there it became a Hill Country institution. Contrary to what nearly everyone assumes, it is named not for the state wildflower but for a blue bonnet, an old-fashioned hat. The Kemper family took over in 1981 and made the pies famous. The kitchen goes through mountains of ingredients, tens of thousands of eggs and thousands of pounds of flour every month, and during Thanksgiving week alone it turns out roughly two thousand pies. Its best-loved tradition is Pie Happy Hour, Monday through Friday from three to five in the afternoon, when a slice of pie comes at a bargain.

6.0 mi away

The Blind Man's Town RoadyGoat

1854

In 1854 a young surveyor named Adam Rankin Johnson rode down the Colorado River from Fort Mason, saw the great falls here, and imagined a manufacturing city powered by the rushing water. The Civil War intervened. Johnson rose to brigadier general, but in August 1864 his own men accidentally shot him in a pre-dawn attack in Kentucky, and he was left totally blind. He came home to Texas and spent his remaining years chasing the dream anyway. He helped bring a railroad to nearby Granite Mountain, then platted the townsite and began selling lots on July 12, 1887. Locals called it the blind man's town. Johnson could no longer see the falls he loved, but he built a town around them. He died at Burnet in 1922.

6.4 mi away

Captain Jesse Burnam

1814

Texas Patriot Jesse Burnam (also spelled Burnham), born in Madison county, Kentucky, was the youngest son of seven children. In 1812, Jesse married Temperance Null Baker in Shelbyville, Tennessee. Jesse was a private in the Mounted Volunteers of Tennessee in the War of 1812, serving from Sep. 1814 to Apr. 1815, including the Battle of New Orleans. Jesse, Temperance and family arrived in Texas in 1821, settling at Pecan Point (Red River County). By 1823, they were among Stephen F. Austin’s “Old Three Hundred,” building a home, fortified trading post and ferry service on the Colorado River frontier. Austin commissioned Burnam as a captain of militia in May 1824. Temperance died in 1833, leaving Jesse with nine children. He later married Nancy Ross, who bore him seven more children. Jesse was a delegate to the Conventions of 1832 and 1833 and the Consultation of 1835. He aided Col. James W. Fannin in gathering volunteers and supplies during the Texas Revolution, and Gen. Sam Houston arrived at Burnam’ s Crossing on March 17, 1836, ordering the ferry, homestead and store burned ahead of the advancing Mexican army. Jesse was a Representative in the Republic of Texas’ provisional government and its first congress. Jesse and Nancy moved their family to Burnet County in 1855, following two older sons who had settled here. Jesse’s land was southeast of present-day Marble Falls on Double Horn Creek, where he established one of the first sheep raising operations in the area and a large wheat farm. The historic Burnam homestead, now in the family’s fifth generation, includes a log cabin, two-story home, spring house, and family cemetery where Jesse, Nancy and others are buried.

Historical Marker →

Dead Man's Hole

1861

Entomologist Ferdinand Lueders made the earliest recorded discovery of this cave in 1821. Notorious in the Civil War era, the hole is believed to have been the dumping ground for up to 17 bodies, including those of pro-Union Judge John R. Scott and settler Adolph Hoppe, several Reconstruction-era county government officials, and Ben McKeever, who had a conflict with local freedmen. An oak tree which once stood over the cave was said to have rope marks caused by hangings. Powerful gases prevented thorough exploration of the site until 1951. The hole was platted in 1968 by the Texas Speleological Society and was found to be 155 feet deep and 50 feet long. (1998)

Historical Marker → · 3.5 mi away

Double Horn, TX

1855

Double Horn was at the headspring of Double Horn Creek, south of the Colorado River in Burnet County and fifty to sixty miles northwest of Austin. The town was formed in 1855 by Jesse Burnam (or Burnham), Levi Fowler, and others. The creek and town were reportedly named after an incident in which a pioneer found the remains of two bucks with interlocked antlers. The Francis Chapel or Frog Pond school, with William H. Holland as its first teacher, was located on the Colorado River; in 1855 among its students were the children of Noah Smithwick . The school, later known as the Double Horn School, was moved near Grid Iron Creek and then to Double Horn Creek. A post office was established for the community in October 1857, with Holland as the first postmaster. In 1884 Double Horn had a population of fifty along with the school, a cotton gin, and two churches. By 1896 its population had dropped to twenty-five, and a physician named Yett practiced there. The Double Horn post office was discontinued in 1911. The cotton gin and gristmill on Grid Iron Creek was later moved to the junction of Grid Iron and Double Horn creeks. A blacksmith shop and store were also nearby. The Double Horn school was still shown on the 1936 county highway map, but all traces of the community and school were gone by the second half of the twentieth century.

Tsha Handbook →

Rockvale

1850

The once thriving community of Rockvale began as a pioneer settlement in the 1850s. A log cabin built in 1855 served as a school and church. A Baptist church was erected in 1856 and had eight charter members. Over 36 acres of land were deeded by Thomas Lloyd Denniston in 1872 to the Methodist Episcopal Church. A stone church building was erected on the land, and two acres were set aside for a cemetery. The earliest recorded burial is that of infant John Francis from 1870. The cemetery north of here is one of the few remnants of the Rockvale community, and is still in use. (1996) Historic Texas Cemetery medallion (2018) attached to post.

Historical Marker →

Johnson, Adam Rankin

1861

Adam Rankin (Stovepipe) Johnson, frontiersman, Confederate general, and town founder, was born on February 8, 1834, in Henderson, Kentucky, the son of Thomas J. and Juliet (Rankin) Johnson. In 1854 he left the drugstore where he had worked since he was twelve and moved to Hamilton Valley in Burnet County, Texas, then the edge of the western frontier. There he gained a reputation as the surveyor of much virgin territory in West Texas, as an Indian fighter, and as a stage driver for the Butterfield Overland Mail . On January 1, 1861, he married Josephine Eastland of Burnet. The couple had six children. With the outbreak of the Civil War Johnson returned to Kentucky and enlisted as a scout under Nathan Bedford Forrest. He was one of the few members of the Fort Donelson garrison who escaped capture by evacuating the fort with Gen. John B. Floyd. His subsequent exploits as commander of the Texas Partisan Rangers within the federal lines in Kentucky earned him a colonel's commission in August 1862 and a promotion to brigadier general on June 1, 1864. One of his most remarkable feats was the capture of Newburgh, Indiana, from a sizable Union garrison with only twelve men and two joints of stovepipe mounted on the running gear of an abandoned wagon. This episode won him his nickname. When Gen. John Hunt Morgan and his men were surrounded on Buffington's Island during Morgan's famous raid, Johnson and his men escaped by swimming the Ohio River. On August 21, 1864, Johnson attacked a federal encampment at Grubbs Crossroads, near Canton in Caldwell County, Kentucky, before daylight; he was accidentally shot by his own men and became totally blind. After capture by the federals he was imprisoned at Fort Warren until the end of the war. Upon his release he returned to Texas, where he lived for his remaining sixty years and founded the town of Marble Falls, "the blind man's town." He worked to develop the water power of the Colorado River, founded the Texas Mining Improvement Company, and served as a contractor for the Overland Mail. General Johnson died at Burnet on October 20, 1922. His funeral services were held in the Senate Chamber of the Capitol in Austin, and he was buried in the State Cemetery there. His memoir, The Partisan Rangers of the Confederate States Army (1904), is one of the most interesting first-hand narratives of antebellum Texas and cavalry operations in Kentucky and Tennessee and was selected as one of the "Texas Basic Books" by John H. Jenkins III . Thomas S. Miller, formerly one of Johnson's troopers, wrote of his old commander: "Paladin of old was not more daring and heroic than this Southern knight on the field of battle. No man in the Southern army, no matter how high his rank, displayed more military skill. . . . He was literally the `Swamp Fox' of Kentucky. [In spite of his blindness] perhaps no man has led a more cheerful and happy life."

Tsha Handbook → · 5.5 mi away

Marble Falls, TX

1817

Marble Falls is on the Colorado River at the intersection of U.S. Highway 281 and Farm Road 1431, thirteen miles southeast of Burnet in southern Burnet County. The falls for which the town was named were used as a landmark by travelers and were referred to as the "great falls" or the "marble falls" of the Colorado River as early as 1817. Charles S. Todd made an effort to establish a town at the falls in 1854. Several lots were sold, but few people built homes there. "Todd's village" faded before it ever really got started, and Todd's land was sold for taxes in 1880. Adam Rankin Johnson saw the falls in 1854 and also wanted to build a city at the site. His project remained a dream, however, until the 1880s. Although there was some difficulty in establishing a clear title to the land, by 1886 Johnson had succeeded in buying one-half and controlling the rest of the original Baker grant, which included the falls area. The Texas Mining and Improvement Company was chartered in June 1887; Johnson and nine others were listed as owners. It handled the business of the new town for several years. Town lots were advertised for sale in July. The Austin and Northwestern Railroad built an extension to Marble Falls from Granite Mountain in 1889. A post office was also established that year with Robert Charlton as postmaster. By 1890 the community had Methodist and Baptist churches, a cotton gin, a gristmill, a tannery, a shoe factory, three general stores, a hotel, a weekly Gazette , and 400 to 600 residents. Population estimates reached 1,800 by 1896. Marble Falls Alliance University was chartered in 1892, but it was in operation only a few years; its facilities were purchased by the public schools when an independent school district was established in 1908. The first city officials were elected in 1907, when a mayor-alderman form of government was instituted. In 1917 the all-male voting population of Marble Falls elected Orphelia (Birdie) Crosby Harwood the first woman mayor in the United States. Some improvements to the city, such as paved streets and electric street lights came in the late 1920s; others, such as sewer systems, had to wait until after the Great Depression and World War II . The potential of the Colorado River falls as a source of power was seen by Johnson when he first arrived at the site in 1854, but it was many years before his dream was actually realized. Plans were made to harness the river at the Marble Falls site in 1871; the legislature authorized the building of a dam near Marble Falls to power a milling and manufacturing establishment, but nothing came of the project. The Marble Falls Cotton and Woolen Mills Company built a factory in 1895, but was unable to raise capital to purchase necessary machinery. A dam project was begun on the Colorado River below Marble Falls in 1910, but was not completed. Finally, in 1925 a dam was built to supply electrical power to the Marble Falls Textile Mills Company; the facility was used by Insull Companies in 1935 to supply power to the Hamilton Dam project. Max Starcke Dam, which formed Lake Marble Falls, was constructed in the early 1950s. Unfortunately, the natural falls were destroyed by the formation of the new lake, but the Marble Falls community benefited from the increased recreational and municipal water supply. Marble Falls served as the principal commercial center for numerous subdivisions and resorts that were built along the lakes after the 1960s. Population estimates for Marble Falls hovered around 1,000 during most of the first half of the twentieth century; after the late 1940s and early 1950s, however, the number of residents increased steadily. In 1940 the population was 1,021; by 1960 it was 2,161. As more people moved to the area to take advantage of lakeside subdivisions, the population and the supporting commercial center grew accordingly: Marble Falls had 2,209 residents and ninety-four businesses in the early 1970s, 3,252 residents and 210 businesses in t

Tsha Handbook → · 5.5 mi away

Double Horn, Texas

Rivers & Roads in Song near Double Horn

History of Double Horn