Name: Utopia, Texas
Address: Utopia, TX

The Utopia That Almost Stood Here RoadyGoat

Here's a coincidence sharp enough to give you chills, and it starts right here in Utopia, Texas. The word Utopia did not just land on this canyon by a postmaster's whim. A real attempt at utopia had already reached for this exact ground. In the eighteen fifties a French thinker named Victor Considerant, a leading voice in a socialist movement built on the ideas of Charles Fourier, came to Texas to plant model communities where people would live and work in shared harmony. His main colony, called La Reunion, rose near what is now Dallas, far to the north of here, drew about two hundred French-speaking settlers, and collapsed within roughly a year and a half under blizzards, drought, and a plague of grasshoppers. But Considerant had also bought land far to the south, some forty-seven thousand acres right here in Sabinal Canyon in Uvalde County, meaning to seed another colony. It never materialized. So decades before George Barker ever wrote Utopia on a form, a man had literally purchased this canyon you're sitting in to build one. The dream failed. The name arrived anyway.

RoadyGoat →

The Word Nobody Was Supposed to Reach RoadyGoat

You're rolling through Utopia, Texas, a real little town on the Sabinal, and a name like that begs the obvious question, so let's take the detour and talk about where the word itself even comes from. It was invented, on purpose, by one man, long before any Texan borrowed it. In fifteen sixteen an English lawyer and scholar named Thomas More published a little book in Latin describing a perfect island society, and he needed a name for the place. He built one out of Greek. He took ou, meaning not or no, and topos, meaning place, and welded them together into Utopia. Read literally, it means no place. And here is More's joke, buried in the spelling. Utopia sounds almost identical to eutopia, which would mean the good place. So the word carries both at once, the good place and the place that does not exist. More was quietly telling his readers that perfect societies live only on paper. That single coined word launched an entire genre, centuries of utopian fiction and real utopian experiments. And a Texas postmaster, three and a half centuries later, hung it on this canyon town you're driving through right now.

RoadyGoat →

The Maples That Missed the Ice Age Exit RoadyGoat

Follow the Sabinal River north out of Utopia, Texas, and you reach one of the strangest little forests in the state, the bigtooth maples of Lost Maples. Here is why they matter. Around ten thousand years ago, as the last ice age faded, Texas was cooler and wetter, and these maples covered a lot of the hill country. Then the climate warmed and dried, and the maples retreated, mostly to the north and up into the mountains. But a pocket of them got trapped in these steep, spring-fed canyons, where the high limestone walls and the cool river hold a moist microclimate that the surrounding dry country lost. Scientists call trees like these relicts, survivors stranded by a climate that moved on without them. Every autumn, for three or four weeks around late October, they flare red and orange and gold, a New England postcard hiding in a Texas canyon. It is not a coincidence they survived exactly here. Geography built them a refuge, and they never left.

RoadyGoat →

Utopia, TX

1852

Utopia, located in the Sabinal (or Ugalde) Canyon, is on the Sabinal River at the junction of Ranch Road 187 and 1050, twenty-three miles north of Sabinal in Uvalde County. Archeologists have found evidence of Paleo-Indians in the canyon. Spanish explorers made several excursions into the area to take careful inventory of tribes, to note the flora and fauna of the area, and to name the rivers, mountains, and streams. They called the Sabinal River Arroyo de la Soledad. In 1790 Juan de Ugalde united Comanches, Taovayas, and Tawakonis and led a decisive victory over the Apaches at the site of future Utopia. The Spaniards also found silver and dug a shaft on the east side of Sugarloaf Mountain, five miles south of Utopia. This mine was seen by John C. Duval in 1836. On June 10, 1839, a party under John C. (Jack) Hays and Juan N. Seguín pursued a band of Comanches into Sabinal Canyon, where they destroyed newly deserted villages. Hays encountered the Comanches again on June 24, 1841, when eight Comanches were killed and two taken prisoner. Capt. William Ware , a soldier in the Texas Revolution , moved to the canyon with his son and six slaves in 1852, thus fulfilling a resolution he had made in 1835, when he first saw the place. With 600 head of cattle and two ox-drawn wagons full of seeds, fruit trees, food, and tools, they had to move large boulders to get the wagons through the pass into the canyon. Gideon Thompson, Aaron Anglin, John and James Davenport, Lee Sanders, Henry Robinson, and Chris Kelley soon arrived. More settlers arrived in 1853, and by 1856, a store-post office was built by Charles Durbon, who became the first postmaster of Waresville. In 1856 Victor P. Considerant purchased 47,000 acres of land in the canyon from the Cañon de Ugalde Land Company. This purchase was financed by the European and American Colonization Society. Considerant's plan to establish a Fourierist phalanx in the canyon did not materialize because the failure of La Réunion , near Dallas, had made potential colonists too wary. Settlers had friendly contact with Tonkawa Indians who had come to plant crops for their people, who were due to come later. The Kickapoos raided many times during the early years. Lipan Apaches captured Frank Buckelew in 1866 and held him captive for eleven months. They also raided Mr. Kincheloe's home that same year while he was away. His wife, Sarah, Captain Ware's daughter, was lanced seventeen times, and Mrs. Ann Bowlin was killed. Warfare continued until 1876. Kincheloe moved his family to land a mile north of Waresville, where he built a two-story home in 1873, marked off and sold lots, and donated land for churches, a park, and a school. In 1884 a survey for the town of Montana was filed in Uvalde County, and the post office was moved from Waresville to Montana. When they learned that another place in Texas was named Montana, residents renamed the place Utopia. By 1880 a stage stopped weekly at the community, where 150 citizens supported two gristmills, a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, a store, and three churches. Methodist services were first held in Waresville by Andrew Jackson Potter in 1854. The Church of Christ was established in 1859; John C. Ware and his sister Eliza Finley were the first two to be baptized. A Christian church also moved to the canyon. Andrew Jackson Sowell, his wife, Mary Lillian, and ten other charter members established the Utopia Missionary Baptist Church in 1886. A man named Barker taught the first three school terms in the Methodist church. In 1880 a schoolhouse was built; this structure was torn down in 1906, and a two-story building took its place. This building was burned in 1926; the present structure, built in 1927, has had several additions. By 1904 the population of Utopia was 147. The town had telephone service by 1914. Annual rodeos have brought thousands of people since 1929. By 1946 the town had seven businesses, three churches, a post office, and a population of 150. In 19

Tsha Handbook →

Ware, William

1836

William Ware, soldier, was born on January 15, 1801, the son of Joseph W. and Elizabeth Dawson (Howell) Ware, in Muhlenburg County, Kentucky, according to some sources, and in Richmond County or Augusta County, Georgia, according to others. In 1828, with his first wife Ann McMurphy and three children, he moved to Texas, settling on Ware Creek, two miles west of the site of present Willis. His wife died soon thereafter. Ware raised and commanded a company of volunteers at the siege of Bexar at which he was slightly wounded on the hand. With Antonio López de Santa Anna 's return to Texas in 1836, Ware reenlisted in the Texas army on March 12, 1836, and was elected captain of the Second Company of Col. Sidney Sherman 's Second Regiment, Texas Volunteers. He took part in the battle of San Jacinto , where James Washington Winters described his effort "like a wild mustang." In Montgomery County in 1836 Ware married Elizabeth Ann Crane, the daughter of John Crane . In 1840 he owned 3,864 acres in Montgomery County, as well as eleven horses and seventy-five head of cattle. In 1844 he moved his family, which had now grown to eight children, to Kaufman County where they remained until 1849. The family then moved to a farm on York Creek, twelve miles south of New Braunfels, where Elizabeth Ware died on December 20, 1849. In 1850 Ware's family, eight children and three of his wife's younger siblings, were living on Cibilo Creek in Bexar County, where their property was assessed at $3,500. In 1852 Ware moved west again, establishing on August 17, 1852, the community of Waresville (now Utopia) in Uvalde County. At that time his was said to be the only Anglo-American family between D'Hanis and the Rio Grande. Ware died at Waresville on March 17, 1853, and buried at Waresville Cemetery in Utopia.

Tsha Handbook →

William Ware

1828

William Ware Capt. William Ware was born in 1800 to Joseph and Elizabeth Ware in Kentucky (Georgia in some sources). In 1828, he and his wife, Ann Murphy, and their three children moved to Montgomery County, Texas. From there, Ware raised a military company in 1835 and fought at the Siege of Bexar. In 1836, he raised the Second Company of the Second Regiment, Texas Volunteers, and fought with the Texas army at San Jacinto. That same year, the widowed Ware married Betsy Crane. While moving to Kaufman County in 1849, Betsy died en route to Sabinal Canyon. Ware and his son, John Crane Ware, arrived in 1852. Here they built a cabin, which became the cornerstone for the settlement of Waresville. Ware died in 1853 and was buried in the Waresville cemetery. 					(2003)

Historical Marker →

Old Waresville

1852

First nonmilitary colony in Uvalde County, founded 1852 by Capt. William Ware, veteran of Battle of San Jacinto. Ware built first log cabin home (still standing). Other early settlers included Gideon Thompson, whose wife was first Anglo-American woman in Sabinal Canyon. Colony lost settlers in Indian Raids, 1856-1866. Although the post office moved to Utopia in 1883, still here is the cemetery where Capt. Ware was buried in 1853; first store and post office built by Charles Durbon, 1856; homes of Joel Fenley, John Ware, built of native stone, 1870's. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1966.

Historical Marker →

Highsmith, Benjamin F.

1835

Served in the Army of Texas, 1835-36 a Ranger under Capt. John C. Hays, a member of the Somervell Expedition, 1842 born in Missouri Sept. 11, 1817. Died Nov. 20, 1905. His wife, Elizabeth Turner Highsmith, born in Missouri March 22, 1836, died Oct. 7, 1900.

Historical Marker →

Lost Maples State Natural Area

Bigtooth maples surviving from the last ice age in a protected Sabinal River canyon, producing spectacular fall color in the middle of Texas.

Natural Landmark → · 13.3 mi away

Utopia, Texas

Music in Utopia

Songs About Utopia

Artists From Utopia

Rivers & Roads in Song near Utopia

History of Utopia

The Utopia That Almost Stood Here RoadyGoat

The Word Nobody Was Supposed to Reach RoadyGoat

The Maples That Missed the Ice Age Exit RoadyGoat

Utopia, TX

Ware, William

William Ware

Old Waresville

Highsmith, Benjamin F.

Lost Maples State Natural Area

Things to Do in Utopia

Everything Near Utopia