San Marcos, TX RoadyGoat

San Marcos owes its character to the land. Imagine layers of limestone, laid down over millennia when this part of Texas was the floor of a shallow sea. That porous rock is what gives rise to the San Marcos River, a spring-fed ribbon of cool, clear water that has drawn life here for thousands of years. You can practically feel the history under your feet, knowing that people camped along these banks, chipping flint into tools, as far back as the Clovis culture. The river isn't just a pretty backdrop; it’s the reason San Marcos exists. The landscape shapes the people, too. There's a unique blend here, a refreshing mix of youthful exuberance and a deep appreciation for the natural world. It’s no accident that a mermaid statue, a relic from Aquarena Springs’ past, is tucked away at the Meadows Center, or that an organization like the Texas Mermaid Society thrives. The river calls to something playful and creative in the people who settle here. The land fosters a certain kind of Texan—one who understands the value of both tradition and a good, cool swim.

8.3 mi away

San Marcos, TX RoadyGoat

San Marcos has always been a place where waters meet. For thousands of years, people have been drawn to the springs that feed the San Marcos River, leaving behind evidence of some of the earliest inhabitants of North America. You can almost picture those first people, the Clovis culture, drawn to the life-giving springs just as we are today. Later, this area became a crossroads, a place where different cultures encountered one another. The river's story continued to evolve, becoming a vital part of the town’s identity. Aquarena Springs, a once-famous attraction, left a lasting mark. Although the glass-bottom boats and "mermaids" are gone, you can still find a mermaid statue hidden at the Meadows Center, a reminder of that unique history. The town hums with a unique blend of laid-back river culture and college-town excitement, a place where vintage cars at Dick's Classic Garage share the road with students heading to class. And just like I-35 connects us to Austin and San Antonio, San Marcos connects the past to the present, always moving forward.

8.3 mi away

San Marcos, TX RoadyGoat

San Marcos—the name itself whispers of cool, clear water. It was the Spanish explorer Alonso de León who christened the river back in 1689, during an expedition through this part of Texas. He named it after Saint Mark the Evangelist, whose feast day coincided with his crossing. The river, fed by the San Marcos Springs, has always been the heart of this place. It’s easy to imagine those early explorers, weary from their journey, finding solace in its life-giving waters. That connection to the river endures even now. You see it in the mermaid statue hidden at the Meadows Center, a whimsical nod to Aquarena Springs’ past. It's in the way the town embraces its river, a refreshing antidote to the hustle of I-35 that runs right through. It’s a place named for a saint, defined by its spring, and known for its soul.

8.3 mi away

Hartson, Mary Lucy Kyle

1937

Mary Lucy Kyle Hartson, early woman mayor, was born on December 6, 1865, at Kyle, Texas, the daughter of Anna Elizabeth (Moore) and Fergus Kyle , for whom the town was named. She was the granddaughter of Lucy (Bugg) and Claiborne Kyle , who settled with their eight children near the Blanco River in 1850. Both her grandfather and father served in the Texas legislature. Her brother Edwin Jackson Kyle was president of the athletic association at the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (later Texas A&M University) and later ambassador to Guatemala. Mary attended school at Blanco Chapel and the Kyle Seminary. In 1888 she graduated from Sam Houston Normal Institute at Huntsville and began a teaching career in Taylor, Texas. While visiting in Dallas in 1891 she met George Dorr Hartson, a young electrical engineer from New York, who moved to Texas to supervise the construction of the Electrical Street Car System. On November 21, 1891, Mary and George were married in Kyle. They made their home in Dallas, later in Laredo, and in 1898 George Hartson accepted the position of electrical supervisor with the Avino Mining Company, thirty miles from Durango, Mexico. On February 4, 1901, Hartson was killed in an accident during an inspection tour of the upper mines, leaving Mary a young widow with two children and another born three months after his burial in Kyle, Texas. In the spring of 1901 Mary Kyle Hartson was appointed postmistress of Kyle, and although a staunch Democrat she served through five administrations until August 1925. As a seventy-two-year-old great-grandmother she was elected mayor of Kyle by a write-in vote in 1937. A picture of Mayor Hartson appeared in the May 10, 1937, Life magazine, where she was written up as the only woman mayor in Texas at the time. From 1937 until 1941 and from 1944 until 1946 Mary Hartson was mayor, and along with the "all woman" city council elected in 1944 made Ripley's Believe It or Not . During her term of office as mayor, the town built a municipal water system, installed street lights, updated the fire department, and kept the city clean. Of her administration Mrs. Hartson said, "We balanced the budget, and cleaned up the town. Then when everything was under control, I retired." After retiring at age eighty-one, she went to Wichita Falls to live with her daughter. She continued to be active in the Woman's Forum in Wichita Falls, the Daughters of the American Revolution , and the United Daughters of the Confederacy . She was a Methodist. She died on March 20, 1956, and was buried in the Kyle cemetery.

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Nance, Ezekiel Edward

1852

Ezekiel Edward Nance, farmer, cattleman, and mill owner, one of two sons of Lewis and Lucy (Kepler) Nance, was born in Tennessee on September 12, 1816. In the late 1820s Lewis Nance moved his family to a farm near Fulton in Hempstead County, Arkansas. Later orphaned, Ezekiel in his youth lived with various relatives. Eventually he settled at Old Washington, Hempstead County, Arkansas, and on October 22, 1840, he married Luany Weightsell Pate, the daughter of Jeremiah and Sarah Pate. Ezekiel and Luany had two daughters and four sons, including Jeremiah Milton Nance . In 1847 Ezekiel filled out the term of the sheriff of Hempstead County when the incumbent resigned. He then ran and won a full term. Nance also served as treasurer of the state of Arkansas from 1848 to 1854. His wife died on February 22, 1852, and later that year he made a hurried exploratory trip to Texas seeking a homestead there. He selected a site at the junction of a small creek (which he named the Little Arkansas) and the Blanco River, to the west of what is now Kyle in Hays County. On June 15, 1852, Nance acquired title to about 10,000 acres in the Seaborn Berry and J. W. Fogg surveys. He later increased his holdings to more than 14,000 acres. He returned to Arkansas and on April 7, 1853, in Hempstead County, married Martha Jane Alexander; the couple had six children. That fall Nance returned to Texas. With him went his new wife, the five surviving children from his first marriage, his first wife's sister (Deborah Jane Pate), his brother James Nance, and George Green and his wife; he also took a number of slaves. James Nance and the Greens went on to San Marcos. In November 1853 Ezekiel registered a horse brand in Hays County, the second-oldest such brand recorded there. One of the first things he did upon arriving was to put up a rock fence around his cropland to protect it from roving wild cattle. He developed one of the earliest working ranches in the area, and, with his sons and slaves, he and his neighbors annually rounded up and branded wild cattle. On the Blanco River , Ezekiel built a dog-run house with a large fireplace at the end of each room. As his family grew, he added three rooms and covered the chinked log walls with cypress panels sawed at his mill; in 1994 the house still stood at its original site. At the site were also built a smokehouse, slave quarters, a carriage house, and an additional two-room house for the eight boys in the family (this house in 1994 bore a Texas Historical Commission marker). Within five years, using slave labor, Nance had built a dam on the Blanco. There he built a sawmill, a gristmill, and later a cotton gin. The Blanco Community (also called the Nance Community and Nance's Mill ) grew rapidly during the late 1850s. Residents conducted much of their business at Mountain City, four miles to the northeast, which had a post office and was on the stage road from Austin to San Antonio. Nance built a blacksmith shop and tenant houses. In April 1858 Nance (with Edward Burleson, Jr. , and William Smith) was appointed by the Hays County commissioners to locate a road from San Marcos to Nance's house on the Blanco River; from there the road ran on to Dripping Springs. In 1860 Nance built a one-room log schoolhouse (and chapel) on his property for his family and his neighbors. That year he persuaded a Bishop Kavanaugh (of Tennessee) to move to Texas to preach and teach school. In 1865 he built of native limestone a larger schoolhouse-chapel that came to be called the Blanco Chapel; it served as a school and a place of worship until 1881. Later for a brief period it served as a Mexican Presbyterian church. In 1863 during the Civil War , Ezekiel operated a small cotton textile mill that supplied coarse cloth to the Confederacy; he also shipped hogsheads of beef to the Confederate Army. In late 1863 he had his slaves fence several thousand acres of his land. After the war ended in April 1865, he applied for-and on May 23 was gr

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Bunton, John Wheeler

1833

Born in Sumner County, Tenn., John Wheeler Bunton migrated to Texas in 1833. To secure freedom for his new homeland, he signed the Texas Declaration of Independence, helped draft a constitution, and fought in the Siege of Bexar and the Battle of San Jacinto. A lawyer, rancher, and owner of extensive lands, Bunton served in the 1st and 3rd congresses of the Republic of Texas. He lived in Austin and Bastrop counties before settling in Hays County near Mountain City. Originally buried in this county, Bunton was reinterred in the state cemetery in Austin in 1932.

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Kyle

1880

Two antebellum settlements, the Blanco or Nance community (7 mi. W) and Mountain City (3 mi. W), provided the early population and business for Kyle after the city was founded in 1880. Fergus Kyle, for whom the town was named, and the family of David Moore donated 200 acres of land for a townsite when the International & Great Northern Railroad built a line from Austin to San Antonio. Lots were first sold in October 1880 as an auction held beneath a liveoak at 204 S. sledge Street. The first business was a saloon and meat market owned by Tom Martin. An 1895 election incorporated the town but voters discontinued the status two years later. Kyle was incorporated again in 1906 and J. W. Tompkins served as the first mayor. In the 1940s Kyle residents elected an all-woman municipal government. The mayor, who won using a write-in campaign, was Mary Kyle Hartson (1865-1956), daughter of Fergus Kyle. Her brother Edwin Jackson Kyle (b. 1876) was dean of the Texas A&M School of Agriculture. He later served in the administrations of Presidents Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman as the ambassador to Guatemala (1944-48). Kyle Football Field at Texas A&M University is named in his honor.

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Kyle, Claiborne

1844

Claiborne Kyle, early Texas politician and settler of Mountain City, Hays County, was born on August 8, 1800, in Hawkins County, Tennessee, the son of Maj. John William and Rebecca (Young) Kyle. His parents had been early settlers in Tennessee and were large landholders there. Kyle married Lucy Bugg in 1829 in Lincoln County, Tennessee, and the couple had nine children. After leaving Tennessee, the Kyles lived in Alabama and Mississippi, where their children were born. Kyle served as state senator in Marshall County, Mississippi, from 1837 to 1841. After a friend for whom he had posted bond absconded, Kyle and his family were placed in great financial difficulty, which precipitated their move to Texas about 1844. The family spent a year in Gonzales, then lived in Austin from 1846 to 1850, when they moved permanently to Hays County. In Texas, Kyle was a member of the Travis County District Court grand jury in 1849. In November 1850 he served on the first grand jury of Hays County and as county treasurer. He also served in the fifth Texas Senate (1853–54) and in the Texas House of Representatives during the Civil War . Five of Kyle's sons fought in the Civil War. One son, Fergus Kyle , founded the town of Kyle, served as captain of Terry's Texas Rangers (the Eighth Texas Cavalry ) during the Civil War, and replaced his father in the Texas House, where he introduced a bill to save the Alamo and a bill to establish Southwest Texas Normal School (later Southwest Texas State University) at San Marcos. A daughter, Lucy Emma, married Maj. Edward Burleson, Jr. , and their son, Albert Sidney Burleson , became postmaster general under the Woodrow Wilson administration. In Hays County Kyle's family built an unusual four-room log house near Kyle, Texas, which has been restored and is open to the public on special occasions. In 1863 Lucy died, and Claiborne died in 1867. Both are buried on land they donated to establish the Kyle Cemetery.

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The Veracruz Family of Kyle

1836

The Veracruz family represents several generations of local vaqueros and ranch hands that contributed to the prosperity of early Kyle. Vaqueros and ranch hands tended to the day-to-day jobs of breaking horses, roping, branding and herding cattle on local ranches or driving cattle to northern markets. As cattle prices declined, they sheared sheep and maintained local ranches.
Pedro Veracruz (1825-1895) and Juanita Tejeda (1844-1929) formalized their marriage in Hays County in 1886. Oral history details that 11-year-old Pedro first came to Texas with General Santa Ana's troops during the Battle of the Alamo. Much too young for the battle, he guarded the mule train. Years later when the U.S. Civil War erupted, he returned to San Antonio with horses for the military and met his future wife, Juanita Tejeda. Veracruz registered his cattle brand with the State of Texas in May 1865 and enjoyed decades of success. Before he died, he willed horses and cattle to Juanita and their children Catarina, Maria Engracia, Salvador, Teresita, Carmen, Pedro Jr., Jesús, Cristóbal, and Sixta. Veracruz is buried in a nearby burial ground along with his son Antonio (1871-1889) who died at age 19.
Pedro and Juanita's grandson, Leonardo Veracruz Candelaria (1884-1950), became a vaquero for area ranches, continuing the family's legacy. His parents, Teresita and Antonio Candelaria, married in Hays County in 1883. Other notable family members include Valdo Eshlaud Castillo Jr. (1838-1918), Luciano Cisneros Sr. (1871-1946) and Reyes Cisneros (1838-1918), whose daughter Juanita married Salvador Veracruz. Local descendants recall hearing stories of their ancestors including traveling the rodeo circuit with Buffalo Bill. The Veracruz family played an important role in the cattle industry that helped shape the cowboy and cattle culture in Central Texas. (2021)

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Kyle, Texas

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San Marcos, TX RoadyGoat

San Marcos, TX RoadyGoat

San Marcos, TX RoadyGoat

Hartson, Mary Lucy Kyle

Nance, Ezekiel Edward

Bunton, John Wheeler

Kyle

Kyle, Claiborne

The Veracruz Family of Kyle

Things to Do in Kyle

Everything Near Kyle