Aransas Creek Settlers
Skidmore, Bee County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Earliest known residents were Karankawa Indians who named creek. On this stream was one of the most famous ranches in early Texas, occupied in 1805 by Don Martin de Leon, who in 1824 founded Victoria. In 1830's Irish colonists came by way of Copano Bay, settling downcreek. Anglo-Americans from older settlements, came by road and trail, stopping mainly upcreek. Stockraising, trucking and freighting provided livelihoods in the rich, new prairie land. In 1850 Patrick Fadden sold to Ft. Merrill corn and vegetables from 1835 land grant of his uncle, Father John Thomas Malloy. Fadden and W.R. Hayes freighted supplies to settlers in 1860's. Hays had early post office in his home, 1870; was county judge 1876-92. John Wilson, an 1850's upcreek settler, brought first Durham cattle to country; built one of first wooden fences, enclosing 600 acres of homesite with rough heart pine plank. On creek's north bank stood ranch of Frank O. Skidmore, founder of Skidmore, who gained fame for building first barbed wire fence and windmill in county. He promoted breeding of registered Herefords and in 1886 gave much of right-of-way to the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Aransas Creek valley layered one Texas frontier era atop another: the Karankawa who named the creek, Martín de León's 1805 rancho, Irish empresario colonists arriving via Copano Bay in the 1830s, and Anglo stock-raisers who followed. Later Frank Skidmore introduced barbed wire, windmills, and registered Herefords, and gave right-of-way to the railroad in 1886. Ranching, freighting, and trucking sustained life on the rich prairie.
Why it matters
It is a microcosm of how Native, Hispanic, Irish, and Anglo settlement overlaid one another to build the South Texas ranching frontier.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Martín de León
- · Frank O. Skidmore
- · Patrick Fadden
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Early Trails in Bee County
Beeville, TX
The roads of Bee County were centuries in the making: Native, wild-cattle, and mustang trails became highways for Spanish expeditions pressing north from Mexico, and later guided pioneers who founded towns at their crossings — Beeville itself sits where two old roads met. During the Civil War the vital "cotton road," called the lifeline of the Confederacy, crossed the county, and afterward great cattle trails funneled Longhorns north toward the Chisholm and Dodge City routes.
Papalote Creek
Beeville, TX
The fierce Karankawa people crossed this creek and named it for the kite-shaped pebbles along its bed, and in the 1830s the leaders of the Power and Hewetson colonies passed here under Mexican land grants; tradition holds the Mexican Army camped on a tributary while marching to crush the Texas Revolution. By 1857 the town of Papalote had grown into the county's center of amusement, boasting a cowboy-built dance hall, cockfights, and horse races, and it boomed when the railroad arrived in 1886. The twentieth century undid it — a failed citrus scheme, fears of Pancho Villa's raids, and finally the 1948 highway bypass — until only a scattering of households remained.
Beeville on the Poesta
Beeville, TX
Mexico granted land on Poesta Creek in 1834 to settlers Anne Burke and James Heffernan, but the young colony soon met disaster: a Comanche raid in 1836 killed Heffernan, his kin, and companions as they planted a crop. Bee County organized in 1858, and after a bitter county-seat dispute the town of Beeville rose on land donated by Burke.
The Railroad in Bee County
Beeville, TX
On June 14, 1886, the first San Antonio and Aransas Pass train steamed into Beeville to a cheering crowd — the payoff of a campaign by rail promoter Uriah Lott, cattleman Captain A.C. Jones, and rancher Frank Skidmore, who donated land and money to bend the line through Bee County. When a second line arrived in 1889, Beeville became a rail center shipping cattle and cotton far and wide, with passenger service peaking around 1918 at eighteen trains a day on one line. Highways eventually undid it all: passenger service ended in 1952, the depot fell in 1958, and the last train left the county in 1994.