C.W. Burdett
Wimberley, Hays County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Clarence W. Burdett (1913-2001) helped build his family’s store in Wimberley in 1932, supervising the construction of the building using native and colored stone brought in from other locations. He married Pansy Rollins and together they built Camp Waloa, the first girls camp in Wimberley. Burdett lived in Wimberley for only 18 years, but left a lasting impact on the buildings there. He built around 50 rock homes along Wood Creek as well as spring boxes and dams. He recognized the tourist attraction to Wimberley, so he split up his property along Lone Man Creek and built small rock cabins to sell to wealthy vacationers from Houston. Three of the cabins he built are still standing. (2014)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Clarence W. Burdett helped build his family's store in Wimberley in 1932, hauling in native and colored stone, and with his wife Pansy founded Camp Waloa, the area's first girls camp. Though he lived in the Hill Country town only eighteen years, he left a deep mark, raising some fifty rock homes along Wood Creek plus dams and spring boxes. Recognizing Wimberley's appeal to visitors, he subdivided land along Lone Man Creek and built rock cabins for wealthy Houston vacationers, three of which still stand.
Why it matters
Burdett's stonework helped turn a quiet Hill Country settlement into a tourist retreat, illustrating how one builder can shape a town's character.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When Clarence Burdett set to work in Wimberley in 1932, the country was in the depths of the Great Depression. Cash was scarce, banks were failing, and across rural Texas people were making do with what the land gave them. In the Hill Country, that meant stone.
Wimberley sat in a fold of that limestone country, where clear creeks like Lone Man and Cypress cut through pale rock and cypress-shaded valleys. It was a small, quiet settlement then, better known for its mill and its scenery than for any bustle of commerce. A builder who understood stone had raw material all around him and a town waiting to take shape.
This was also the era when Americans with a little money were discovering the automobile weekend. Paved roads and family cars were turning scenic backcountry into weekend country, and a place with cool creeks and pretty views was suddenly within reach of the cities. Burdett arrived at exactly the moment when Wimberley's natural gifts were about to become an attraction.
People & events
Clarence W. Burdett, born in 1913, came to Wimberley as a young man and helped build his family's store in 1932, personally supervising the masonry with native stone and colored stone hauled in from elsewhere. He was a builder by instinct, and the town became his canvas.
With his wife, Pansy Rollins, he founded Camp Waloa, the first girls camp in Wimberley — a venture that speaks to how the family saw the place not just as home but as a destination worth sharing. Around Wood Creek he raised some fifty rock homes, and he built the humbler waterworks a settlement needs: spring boxes to capture clean water and dams to hold it.
Seeing that outsiders were drawn to the town's beauty, Burdett subdivided his land along Lone Man Creek and built small rock cabins to sell to well-off vacationers from Houston. He lived in Wimberley only about eighteen years, yet the stone he set outlasted his stay. Three of those cabins were still standing when the marker was placed.
Its place in the American story
Burdett's story is a small, vivid chapter in a very American pattern: the transformation of scenic rural places into recreation country during the first great age of the family automobile. All across the country in the 1930s and after, quiet towns near water and hills were being reimagined as weekend escapes, one cabin and one subdivided lot at a time.
It is also a story about vernacular building — the way a region's own material shapes its look. The stone cottages and creekside homes that give the Texas Hill Country its distinctive character were not designed by famous architects but raised by local hands who knew the rock. Burdett was one of those hands.
And it is a reminder of how much a single determined builder can do to set a community's course. Long after a founder's name fades from daily conversation, the streets, homes, and dams he leaves behind keep shaping how a place looks and how it makes its living.
If you visit
Wimberley today is exactly the kind of Hill Country getaway Burdett bet it would become, so a visit here folds naturally into a slow drive through the region's creek valleys and small towns. Come with an eye for stonework.
As you move through the older parts of town and along the creeks, look at the walls: native limestone laid up by hand, sometimes mixed with stone of another color hauled in for contrast. That masonry is the signature Burdett and builders like him left behind, and once you start noticing it you will see it everywhere.
The pleasure here is in the pace. This is a place built to be lingered in — shaded by cypress, cooled by spring-fed creeks, and stitched together from the very rock underfoot. Read the marker, then let it change how you look at the buildings around you for the rest of the day.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
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Themes & tags
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