Bandera Historic Town Center
Bandera, Bandera County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The origin of the name of Bandera Pass and its namesake city and county dates back to conflicts between the Spanish Army and native Lipan Apaches in the early 18th century. The history of the townsite began in the early 1840s, when Charles de Montel and John James explored and surveyed the area on the northeast side of the medina river. The men formed a company with John Hunter Herndon and purchased land from Bernardino Ruiz out of Bexar County land survey no. 58, section 5, on December 9, 1841. De Montel, a German immigrant, became a soldier in the Texas army and an early area settler; James surveyed across Texas including some of the earliest mapping of the Hill Country; and Herndon was one of the wealthiest men in Texas at the time. Together, these three men oversaw the establishment of buildings and expansion for the town of Bandera. Near what became the center of the townsite survey (now 11th street), Ruiz had built a small stone house, which was later used by James as a land office and then sold to de Montel. James and de Montel also established a sawmill in the new town. In 1854, Lyman Wight established a Mormon colony near Bandera, which included a schoolhouse and furniture factory. The following year, polish immigrants arrived, and many of their early hand-cut limestone buildings are among the city’s architectural heritage. Polish immigrant Johann Dlugosz (John Dugosh) built the first combined store and post office for German immigrant, August Klappenbach. The Texas legislature created and organized Bandera County in 1856 and made Bandera the county seat. Settlers of various origins became part of the community, including African American, British, Norwegian, Scottish, Irish and French immigrants.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
Bandera's founding captures the layered frontier story of Texas—Indigenous presence, Spanish conflict, and a mosaic of immigrant settlers building a town together.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Charles de Montel
- · John James
- · Lyman Wight
Related events
- · Founding of Bandera County, 1856
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Penateka Comanches
Center Point, TX
The Penateka, or "honey eaters," were the southernmost band of the Comanche, ranging across the Edwards Plateau and following the buffalo on which they depended for food, clothing, and shelter. Renowned horsemen, they made settlement west of this area perilous for decades. Pressure from Texas Rangers and the U.S. Army's Second Cavalry, reservation removals, and the Red River War of 1874–75 forced the Comanche onto reservation lands, where the breakup of holdings in 1901 scattered the people — who have since worked to rebuild their shared culture.
Adolph (Ad) Toepperwein
Boerne, TX
Born in Boerne in 1869 to Prussian immigrants, Adolph "Ad" Toepperwein learned to shoot from his gunsmith father and could outshoot seasoned marksmen by age ten. After stints as a cartoonist, vaudeville performer, and circus act, he signed with the Winchester Repeating Arms Company in 1901 as an exhibition shooter. With his wife Elizabeth—whom he taught to shoot—he toured for over forty years as "The Wonderful Toepperweins," setting records that landed him in Ripley's, the Guinness Book, and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame.
Haby Settlement
Rio Medina, TX
In the 1840s, families from Oberentzen in Alsace, France—the Habys, the Gsells, and the Becks—settled a high bluff above the Medina River, part of the wave of Alsatian colonists Henri Castro drew to this stretch of the Texas frontier. Two Haby sons helped found nearby Castroville in 1844, and the clan earned the nickname the 'fighting Habys' as several joined the Texas Rangers to defend the settlement. They harnessed the perennial artesian springs they called Die Quelle with gravity-fed irrigation ditches, and their stone Alsatian homes and family farms endure today.
James Kerr
Kerrville, TX
James Kerr, a Kentucky-born veteran of the War of 1812 and former Missouri legislator, came to Texas in 1825 as surveyor general of Green DeWitt's colony and a member of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred." He selected the site of Gonzales and named it for the governor of Coahuila, endured the deaths of his first wife and children, and spent decades as a surveyor, Texas Ranger major, and delegate to the conventions that steered Texas toward independence. In 1856 pioneer Joshua Brown gave land here so that Kerr County would bear his old friend's name.