Dr. Ray Buchanan
Master Gardener, Master Naturalist
To Settle or Not to Settle? A Real Question in the History
of Llano County
What do you think Jim Bowie, Sam Houston and "Billy" Davis have in common? Were these three frontier fighters? No, but they could have been. Were they all political figures in the history of Texas? No, but they could have been. Were these three prominent landowners in the early Southwest? No, but they could have been.
According to Bitsy Russell in her September 25th presentation at the Lakeshore Library, these three men represented three different but very significant stages in the early history of how people came to Llano County. They each tell us something about the original exploration and settlement of the County, which began in the north-east area around the Colorado River between present-day Tow and Round Mountain.
For about 200 years Spain owned the land that later became Texas. The Spanish who came into what later bacame Llano County were looking for gold and silver, little of which was ever found. But they had no interest in settlement. Likewise, men like Jim Bowie came as adventurers who traveled the area, exploring the landscape and the wildlife. They showed little interest in settling down either. So in the first stage, explorers came and went.
The interest in settlement that became characteristic of the second stage (in the 1840's) did not happen at all like it was planned. And "planned" is a key word here. The settlement of much of Llano County west of the Colorado River became the objective of an official State of Texas program for the colonization of land-rich but people-poor Texas. Surveyors were sent out to map the territory and determine settlement potential.
It was the President of the Republic of Texas, Sam Houston, who implemented a scheme to provide a 3.8 million acre land grant to be advertised and sold to Europeans (German aristocrats in this case) in order to populate a state rich in open land. But the Fisher-Miller land grant failed (not in the selling but in the populating) because the Germans who bought the land (some 75% of the land was actually sold) refused to come in and occupy the land because of the presence of Native Americans and the perceived lack of protection in this open frontier.
Fredericksburg, Mason, Comal County and other areas reaped the benefits of German interest in Texas' land at this point, but not Llano County. Settlers began to come to this area through jumping-off places like Georgetown, Burleson, and Bastrop as squatters: those who settled on land that was actually owned by the original German purchasers.
It was these people who finally made a home in what was to become Llano County, Ms. Russell emphasized, and who began to obtain legal title in their own name to the land at the county seat (then in San Antonio). Others came from Arkansas and other states surrounding Texas. Interest in using the land for farming and for livestock production prompted an initial stage of settlement in Llano County. Even though the local Indians did not prove to be particularly troublesome, settlers arrived in a slow and intermittent fashion.
It took the location of that early wonder-mineral- salt- to spark the real growth and development of Llano County. It is supposed to have started, recounted Ms. Russell, at a meeting between some Indians and settlers at Council Creek where the location of a natural spring that bubbled forth with salt water was revealed. The location turned out to be at Maxwell Slough near the Colorado River close near the village of Tow, which was originally called Saline. Salt water gushed up from the spring and was placed in large vats that were heated with wood fires until the water boiled away leaving a coating of salt. Billy Davis became one of the main enterpreneurs who developed the salt and the resulting salt trade in the late 1840's and early 1850's.
This discovery provided the main impetus for a "rush" of people across a web of new roads to the Tow-Old Bluffton area where work was plentiful and money was to be made. Hence, in November of 1855 when a group of men signed a petition to the State to form the County of Llano, it was these economic settlers in the salt business who were the main initiators.
So, what Bowie, Houston, and Davis had in common was the drive to explore, to create land settlements, and to establish an economic magenet for new peoples; all of whom contributed to the history of early Llano County.
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