Bandera County

Bandera, TX

The name Bandera traces to eighteenth-century clashes between the Spanish army and Lipan Apaches at the nearby pass, but the town itself began in the 1840s when Charles de Montel, John James, and John Hunter Herndon surveyed and purchased land along the Medina River. A Mormon colony arrived in 1854, followed by Polish immigrants whose hand-cut limestone buildings still stand, and settlers of many nations soon joined them. In 1856 the Texas Legislature made Bandera the seat of its new county.

Quihi, TX

Quihi was surveyed in 1844 by Henry Castro, the pioneering empresario whose colony brought European immigrants to the Texas hill country. Ten families led by Castro's agent Louis Huth settled here in early 1845, on land at the very edge of the frontier. Life was perilous—many of the settlers were killed in raids before 1860—and the state marked the town's founding during the 1936 centennial.

Bandera, TX

In March 1854 a band of Latter-day Saints led by church elder Lyman Wight settled near the year-old town of Bandera on the Medina River. Wight had broken with Brigham Young and brought a colony of 250 to Texas in 1846, moving from Austin to Fredericksburg—where they ran grist and saw mills—before founding "Mormon Camp." Here they raised houses with gardens between them, milled grain, and crafted native-wood furniture to sell back East. When Wight died in 1858 the colony scattered, though a remnant stayed on in Bandera.

Bandera, TX

This winding hundred-mile road from San Antonio to Kerrville served through the 19th century as a strategic patrol route for the Texas Rangers guarding the frontier. Bandera sat midway along the trail near Bandera Pass, a notorious ambush spot, making the town a focal point for Ranger activity. The route's most famous clash came in 1841, when Captain 'Jack' Hays and forty Rangers were ambushed by a large Comanche force in the pass and fought a desperate, close-quarters battle.