Dripping Springs, Texas

Everything Dripping Springs is known for

11 songs mention this city 5 artists from here

Dripping Springs, Texas, known as the "Gateway to the Hill Country," is home to a vibrant musical spirit. This central Texas city, just 25 minutes west of Austin, has inspired numerous songs and is home to several artists.

Our collection features 10 songs that mention Dripping Springs, including "Down At Drippin' Springs" by Johnny Cash and "Dripping Springs TX" by Pollo Del Mar. Four artists call Dripping Springs home, all contributing to the country music scene: Midland, Hill Country Revival, Alyssa Paige, and Logan Papp. Grammy-nominated neotraditional country band Midland formed in Dripping Springs in 2014.

Music in Dripping Springs

Songs About Dripping Springs

Down At Drippin' Springs
Johnny Cash
90%
"Down at Dripping Springs"
Dripping Springs TX
Pollo Del Mar
90%
Dripping Springs
Eric Tingstad
90%
Dripping Springs Heartbeat
Wayne Boone
90%
Dripping Springs
Cameron Kelsey
90%
Between Heaven and Dripping Springs
Sit Down, Servant!!
90%
Two-Step Down to Texas
Jack Ingram
54%
"And do shady things in Dripping Springs, honey I don't kiss and tell"
Down At Drippin’ Springs
Johnny Cash
51%
"Down at Dripping Springs down at Dripping Springs"
Hamilton Pool
Alysia Kraft
42%
"Hamilton Pool"
Sweet Daffodil
The Hill Country Devil
23%
"Out on Porter Road"
County Road 123
Aaron Watson
20%
"Down County Road 123"

Artists From Dripping Springs

M
Midland
country
H
Hill Country Revival
country
A
Alyssa Paige
country
J
Jillian Hudson
country
L
Logan Papp
country

Rivers & Roads in Song near Dripping Springs

Songs written about the waterways and highways that run near Dripping Springs.

Texas State Highway 71 2 songs Pedernales River 6 songs Blanco River 4 songs Texas Colorado River 6 songs Interstate 35 43 songs Guadalupe River 17 songs

Musical Heritage

Dripping Springs Reunion at Hurlbut Ranch RoadyGoat

In 1972, a crew of Dallas promoters rented Hurlbut Ranch outside Dripping Springs and dreamed big — sixty thousand fans a day, a three-day country blowout somebody billed as the Hillbilly Woodstock. About twenty thousand showed up, total. Willie Nelson figured out why fast: the promoters bought their ads in New York and Nashville, when the crowd they needed was right there around Austin. They lost a fortune. But look what got left in the wreckage. The lineup had mixed Nashville — Loretta Lynn, Buck Owens, Merle Haggard — with Texas writers like Willie, Waylon, and Kris Kristofferson. A few months later Willie moved home from Nashville to Austin for good. And the next summer, they reused the bones of that failed festival to throw the very first Fourth of July Picnic. Some flops plant seeds.

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First Willie Nelson Fourth of July Picnic, Hurlbut Ranch RoadyGoat

In 1973, Willie Nelson was forty years old and selling maybe a thousand tickets a show. His album "Shotgun Willie" had earned good reviews and thin sales. So he threw a party. On the Fourth of July, out at the Hurlbut Ranch west of Austin, about forty thousand people showed up. He'd hired the crew from the Armadillo World Headquarters to run it, and advertised the whole thing on rock radio; Leon Russell, a genuine rock star then, was the biggest draw. By the accounts after, it was a beautiful disaster — traffic backed up ten miles, water and restrooms nowhere near enough, the sound system blew, a hundred degrees and no shade. Folks straggled out at two in the morning on July fifth. And Willie Nelson had just invented his Fourth of July Picnic.

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History of Dripping Springs

Every Drip Is Building Stone RoadyGoat

Here is something worth chewing on as you pass a town literally named for dripping water. That same drip, the slow seep of mineral-loaded water over limestone, is the exact process that builds the great cave formations you have seen in pictures, the icicles of stone hanging from cave ceilings called stalactites, and the mounds rising from the floor called stalagmites. It works like a reversal of the story I could tell you about how caves form. On the way down, acidic water dissolves limestone and carries dissolved calcium with it. But the moment that water reaches open air and lets go of its carbon dioxide, the chemistry flips, and a whisper of solid mineral, calcite, gets left behind. Drip by drip, ring by ring, stone grows. And it is astonishingly patient work. A cave formation often grows less than a tenth of a millimeter a year, thinner than a sheet of paper, so a stone icicle the length of your arm can be tens of thousands of years old. So the humble drip in this town's name is one of the slowest sculptors on Earth, and it never stops working.

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The Tiny Creatures That Only Live in Springs RoadyGoat

The springs that give this town its name are not just pretty water. Across the Hill Country, spring-fed creeks and the aquifers behind them shelter some of the rarest animals in Texas, creatures so specialized they live nowhere else on Earth. Think of the Texas blind salamander, a pale, eyeless cave dweller that spends its whole life in the dark, spring-fed waters underground, sensing its world by feel and by the faint stir of the current. Or the fountain darter, a fish barely over an inch long, and the Comal Springs riffle beetle, both clinging to existence in the constant, clean flow of a single spring system. Scientists count at least a dozen federally protected species that survive only in these karst springs and the water beneath them. Why so fragile? Because a true spring runs at a steady cool temperature year round, and these animals evolved for exactly that, no summer heat, no winter chill, just the aquifer's even breath. Let the spring falter and their whole world falters with it. So when you hear Dripping Springs, remember the name points to a kind of Texas water that quietly keeps whole rare species alive.

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The Spring That Named the Town RoadyGoat

You're rolling into a town named for water you can still watch fall. In 1853 and 1854 three families from the South stopped their wagons near a creek-side ledge here in northern Hays County and stayed: Dr. Joseph Pound and his wife Sarah, John Moss and his wife Indiana, and John Wallace and his wife Malvina. Sarah and Indiana were sisters, which made this less a settlement than an extended family putting down roots on the edge of the Hill Country. By 1857 the cluster of log cabins had grown enough to need a post office, and a post office needed a name. As the story goes, Indiana Moss, called Nannie, looked at the fern-draped limestone ledges nearby where springwater seeped through the rock and dripped steadily into the creek below, and called it exactly what she saw. Those ledges still drip today, fed by the same shallow aquifer the Tonkawa once gathered around. A town gets a poetic name maybe once in a generation, and Dripping Springs earned its honestly. (Source: Handbook of Texas; City of Dripping Springs.)

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W. T. Chapman

1872

Born in Georgia, William Thomas Chapman (1835-1917) came to Texas after the Civil War during which he was wounded, incarcerated and released after taking the Oath of Allegiance to the United States. By 1872, he was in the Dripping Springs area. He married widow Martha (Box) Marshall (1835-1924) shortly after the passing of her husband, Burrell J. Marshall. Chapman raised Martha's five children and two of their own. He became the postmaster and stagecoach station operator for the area. Chapman was integral to bringing about the first public works in the settlement. In the 1870s, Chapman likely helped build the first school and was a founding trustee of Hays County School District #10. In July 1872, Chapman provided land for the First Baptist Church, which later burned. Chapman donated two acres in 1881 for the construction of Dripping Springs Academy, which doubled as a school and a church. He built a boarding house and hotel to supplement the complex. Partnering with both A.L. Davis Sr. and Jr., Chapman became a prominent merchant. In 1881, Chapman used Martha's 260 acres inherited from the Marshall estate to create twelve blocks and six streets that would be known as Dripping Springs. He named the main street after their son, Mercer. Homes and new businesses sprouted, leading Chapman to file for additional plats of land in subsequent years. Also active in Confederate veterans' affairs, Chapman helped found Camp Ben McCullouch, serving as adjutant. W.T. Chapman played an active role in the creation and subsequent success of Dripping Springs. He lies buried in Wallace Mountain Cemetery which he and A.L. Davis Sr. established. (2018)

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Harris, John William

1912

John William Harris, minister and college founder, son of William David and Anne Evelyn (von Bucknow) Harris, was born on January 12, 1876, in Dripping Springs, Texas. He grew up on his family's ranch near Dilley and received his early education in area schools. In 1892 his family moved to Cotulla. As a teenager he worked as a cowboy and sheepherder. In 1894 he had an experience that resulted in his decision to devote his life to the Presbyterian Church . He attended Park Academy and Park College in Parkville, Missouri, from 1895 to 1902 and received his B.A. degree. He attended Princeton Seminary in Princeton, New Jersey, from 1902 to 1905. Harris was ordained as a Presbyterian minister in 1905, the year he married Eunice Evelyn White; they eventually had five children. In 1905 he was assigned a pastorate in Pond Creek, Oklahoma. The next year he was reassigned to an evangelical mission in San German, Puerto Rico. In March 1912, with one student, he founded Polytechnic Institute, which was modeled in part on the work-study program of Park College. The institute, originally housed in a farmhouse, was coeducational, ecumenical, and racially integrated, the only school of its kind in Puerto Rico. In 1916 Polytechnic graduated its first high school class. In 1919 the school was authorized to grant university-level degrees, and in 1927 the first college class, consisting of twenty-seven students, graduated. By 1927 Polytechnic had an enrollment of 400 and a 200-acre campus with ten permanent buildings. Polytechnic Institute was incorporated in 1920. It was the first coeducational school outside of the continental United States to be accredited by the Middle States Association of American Colleges and Secondary Schools, the Association of American Colleges, and the National Commission on Christian Higher Education. Harris served as president of the institute until his retirement in 1937, and he remained a member of the board of trustees until his death. On retirement he and his wife returned to their ranch, El Guajalote, in Dilley, Texas. Harris served as county committeeman to the Agricultural Adjustment Administration . He was president of the National Farm Loan Administration of Pearsall from 1940 to 1944. From 1944 to 1954 he was director of the Winter Garden National Farm Loan Association, and he directed the Survey of Southwest Texas for the Austin Presbytery in 1945. Harris was a life member of the Lions Club and the San German Masonic Lodge. He received two honorary LL.D. degrees, one from Park College in 1920 and the other from the University of Puerto Rico in 1937. He also received an honorary D.D. degree from Polytechnic in 1948. Harris died in Texas on June 14, 1956, as the result of an automobile accident. He was buried on the grounds of Polytechnic Institute in San German, Puerto Rico. In 1977 the Inter American University Press published his memoirs under the title Riding and Roping .

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Pound, Dr. Joseph M.

1854

Pioneer settlers Dr. Joseph M. Pound and his wife Sarah Dunbiken Ward lived here and raised nine children. Two log pens made of rough-hewn cypress logs were built in 1854 with slave labor. Additions were added over time with clapboard and board-and-batten siding and square nail construction. The house featured four cut limestone fireplaces. Circuit riders stopped here and conducted Methodist worship services. The sick and wounded, rich or poor, came to this home as to a hospital. Dr. Pound, a U.S. Army private in the U.S. -Mexican War, was a confederate surgeon in the Civil War. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1965

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The Marshall-Chapman Home

1871

Burrell J. Marshall (1826-1872) built this residence in 1871 by adding rooms of native limestone to an existing frame structure. He used his home briefly as a post office while he was postmaster. When Marshall died in 1872, his widow Martha (1835-1924) married Wm. Thomas Chapman (1835-1917), who also became postmaster and a trustee of the Dripping Springs Academy. Marshall and Chapman family members owned the house until 1942, when John and Clara Wilson bought it. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1976

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San Marcos de Neve

1808

San Marcos de Neve was a small Spanish villa (1808-1812) of approximately eighty-two persons located at the junction of the Camino Real and the San Marcos River. The Spanish government authorized the founding of San Marcos de Neve shortly after the United States's purchase of Louisiana in an effort to halt Anglo expansion, arrest contraband trade from the United States, and promote a ranching economy within Texas. The population of San Marcos de Neve consisted almost entirely of persons born in New Spain. After receiving approval and funding from Gov. Manuel Antonio Cordero y Bustamante , a number of families from Refugio in Nuevo Santander departed for the San Marcos River on the Camino Real in December 1807. Led by Spaniard Felipe Roque de Portilla , these families arrived at the future site of the villa on January 6, 1808, and quickly set about building homes and a central plaza. They were joined shortly thereafter by a small contingent of soldiers from San Antonio under Juan Ygnacio de Arrambide, who issued thirteen town lots to residents in April 1808. By the following year, a number of additional families had joined the original settlers. The people of San Marcos de Neve made their living primarily by raising livestock, with the vast majority of workers in an 1809 census listing herder or stockman as their profession. The ranchers raised cattle, horses, oxen, burros, and other forms of livestock for personal use and export. Although only one person on the 1809 census listed his profession as carpenter, it is possible that other residents of the villa had a skilled trade, but considered it secondary to their primary profession. From the founding of San Marcos de Neve to its eventual abandonment in 1812, the settlement faced a litany of problems. On June 5, 1808, just a few months after the villa's founding, the settlement was overcome by a flood that washed through its plaza and destroyed a number of citizens' homes. Although settlers made preparations to rebuild the settlement on higher ground, they apparently never followed through with the idea. This same year, an almost complete crop failure forced residents to depend on their cattle herds. In 1809 settlers at San Marcos de Neve complained that Tonkawa attacks on the villa were so frequent that it was almost impossible to cultivate their land. On July 27, 1812, a combined group of Comanche and Tawakoni Indians invaded San Marcos de Neve and ran off with some 205 horses. The small detachment of soldiers in the villa was powerless to stop the attack and unable to pursue the raiding Indians . Making matters worse for the civilians at San Marcos, a number of Comanches reported to Spanish officials in San Antonio that the attack was only a small part of a larger, multi-tribe effort to make war on the Spanish. Fearing that foreigners had been inciting natives, then Texas Gov. Manuel María de Salcedo recalled the soldiers of San Marcos in order to defend San Antonio. With no one left to guard against Indian raids, the people of San Marcos abandoned their homes, never to return. It appears that most of the settlers returned to Mexico. Shortly after the abandonment of San Marcos, the commandant general of the Eastern Internal Provinces, Joaquín de Arredondo, ordered a massive fort built in the area to defend Spanish settlements against Indian raids. Workers quickly abandoned the project, however, because Comanches attacked them every time they went to chop wood for its construction. In 1995 an archeological team under Nancy Kenmotsu located the remains of San Marcos de Neve in Hays County. Kenmotsu's inspection-and subsequent investigations in 1997 and 1998-found that although the villa contained a plaza, most of San Marcos's residents lived outside the town's center. Archeologists speculate that this could either be due to the villa's ranching focus or to residents rebuilding their homes on higher ground after the 1808 flood. In any case, the settlement pattern made it more d

Tsha Handbook → · 9.5 mi away

Spring Lake Site

-9000

The Spring Lake Site is so named because it is one of several areas of archeological debris under the lake of the protected property known as Aquarena Springs . Other sites exist all around the lake, which is located in San Marcos in southeastern Hays County. Spring Lake (at 29°53' N, 97°56' W) is produced from San Marcos Springs , which has an average daily flow of 150 to 300 million gallons a day, half a dozen other large outlets from the giant Edwards Aquifer, and a great many small seepages. These combine to form the San Marcos River. The lake lies at the foot of the Edwards Plateau , some thirty miles south of Austin and fifty miles north of San Antonio. Between 9,000 and 10,000 B.C. the Clovis people took up residence at the springs; they were apparently the first people to live there and appear to have located by the springs because of the relative warmth of the water, which is a constant 72° regardless of season. Also, springside trees, grasses and water plants are constantly succulent and could be expected to attract browsers and grazers to the springs as well as to the first few miles of the San Marcos River. Whether the Clovis lived at the site recurrently or permanently, we do not know. The residue of their activity is abundant, especially in flaked stone tools and chipping debris. Huge mammoths, mastodons, and bison were killed away from the main camp with only selected parts, primarily the teeth, brought home. Those fragments had been broken away from the jaw bones with a hammerstone; however, the teeth include interior pulp and dentine. Thus, poor preservation cannot be blamed for the absence of larger bones. By Archaic times bison leg bones and whole teeth appeared in the camp debris. Excavations in Spring Lake were directed by Joel L. Shiner of Southern Methodist University beginning in 1978. The work was sporadic since no significant support was received except from private sources. The Aquarena Corporation, tuition from private underwater classes, and grants from business firms kept the research alive. On the average, small crews were in the water about two days per month. In the 1990s anthropology graduate student Paul Takac continued the archeological research begun by Shiner. A cultural sequence has been blocked out for 12,000 years of occupation. Following the Clovis people, there was a group that made and discarded large numbers of as yet unnamed long slender lanceolate spear points. These are presumed to date from 7,000 to 9,000 B.C. The two early occupations are followed by the typical Archaic Phases and their distinctive points. About A.D. 1000 the bow and arrow and crude pottery appear. In the 1700s numerous Spanish expeditions passed by but made no permanent settlements. In the 1840s Anglos began settlement. The collecting from the site has been done by scuba divers, because in the late nineteenth century the early Texans dammed the river immediately below the springs and inundated the ancient villages with ten to twelve feet of water. Because of the water, preservation has been excellent. Teeth, wood, and bones already "walked" into the mud at the spring banks have been protected by lake deposition from modern collectors, industry, and roads. In 1994 Aquarena Springs Resort, including Spring Lake, was formally purchased by Southwest Texas State University. The school's Anthropology Department, headed by James Garber, played an increased role in the study of the site and its artifacts. In 1995 the resort featured a new natural history exhibit containing artifacts from the 1978 dig.

Tsha Handbook → · 9.5 mi away

Things to Do in Dripping Springs

food 21.9 mi away
Franklin Barbecue

Legendary Austin BBQ with 2-3 hour waits. Obama waited in line here.
nature 10.8 mi away
Hamilton Pool Preserve

A natural swimming hole under a 50-foot waterfall in a collapsed grotto.
quirky 10.8 mi away
Hamilton Pool

A domed grotto of limestone where an underground river collapsed thousands of years ago and left a fifty-foot waterfall spilling into a jade-green pool.…
quirky 11.0 mi away
Jacob's Well

An artesian spring flows up through a vertical cave in Wimberley so clear and so deep that from the surface you can see straight down a hundred feet into the…
nature 12.8 mi away
Pedernales Falls

The Pedernales River drops over a staircase of tilted Cretaceous limestone here -- the rock layers dip about three degrees to the southeast and the river…
historical 17.9 mi away
The Broken Spoke

James White built the Broken Spoke out of cinder blocks on South Lamar in 1964 and stubbornly refused to let Austin grow up around it. Willie Nelson Bob Wills…
quirky 17.9 mi away
Willie Nelson's Luck Ranch

Willie built his own ghost town on his Spicewood ranch for the 1986 movie Red Headed Stranger -- a whole frontier village with a saloon chapel livery and…
historical 18.1 mi away
Devil's Backbone Tavern

Perched on the haunted limestone ridge that gives the road its name, Devil's Backbone Tavern is one of the great Texas Hill Country dive bars. The first stone…
day trip
Day Trip to Dripping Springs 🧗🏻 (FULL EPISODE) S4 E5

Featured on The Daytripper — a full-episode local travel guide.

Sports in Dripping Springs

🏆 STATE CHAMPIONS Class 6A · Volleyball · 2022

Dripping Springs — 2022 UIL 6A Volleyball State Champions

Most recent: 2022 6A

Dripping Springs High School, located in the scenic Texas Hill Country, stands as a Class 6A powerhouse in volleyball. The Tigers have established a strong presence in UIL competition, bringing pride and excitement to their community. Their consistent performance reflects the dedication found within the program and among its student-athletes.

The school's most notable achievement in volleyball came with their state championship title in 2022, competing at the 6A level. This significant victory highlights a peak moment for Dripping Springs athletics, showcasing the talent nurtured in this vibrant Texas town.

State titles
2022
Most recent
2022
Class
6A
The moment

The Dripping Springs Tigers secured a state championship in volleyball in 2022, competing in Class 6A.

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

Everything Near Dripping Springs

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

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