Dr. James Odiorne
Johnson City, Blanco County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1816-1887) Prominent pioneer physician, civic leader. Practiced medicine in Illinois and Kentucky before settling in Texas in 1857; moved to Blanco County in 1860. He was Civil War surgeon at Fort Mason, Tex. Served as commissioner and chief justice of Blanco County, 1860s; owned a newspaper, 1885-87. As doctor he went by horseback or gig, regardless of weather. Scarcity of drugs led him to use native herbs for medication; for a sedative (opium), grew and milked garden poppies. He died of burns when alcohol exploded during the compounding of medicine in his drugstore near this site. (1972)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Dr. James Odiorne practiced medicine in Illinois and Kentucky before settling in Texas in 1857 and moving to Blanco County in 1860, where he became a leading pioneer physician and civic figure. He served as a Confederate surgeon at Fort Mason during the Civil War and later as county commissioner, chief justice, and even newspaper owner. Riding by horseback or gig in all weather, and short on manufactured drugs, he turned to native herbs and even grew garden poppies for opium — a compounding accident with alcohol ultimately cost him his life.
Why it matters
Odiorne embodies the frontier doctor who was healer, official, and improviser all at once, making do with what the land offered on the edge of settlement.
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Related people
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
James Polk Johnson
Johnson City, TX
Georgia-born and raised in DeWitt County, James Polk Johnson served in the Confederate army before joining his uncles in the Blanco County cattle business, which he bought and made his own by 1871. In 1879 he founded a new town on the Pedernales River — Johnson City — and worked to develop it, though his ambition to make it the county seat was not realized until 1891, six years after his death.
Joseph Bird
Round Mountain, TX
North Carolina native Joseph Bird brought his family to the land between Cypress Creek and the Pedernales around 1854, and for half a century helped build Blanco County as a frontier Baptist circuit minister, postmaster, rancher, and county judge. The settlement that grew up around him was first called Birdtown before being renamed Round Mountain, where a post office opened in 1857. Bird rode a preaching circuit, founded churches, and served as a Confederate first lieutenant during the Civil War.
Blanco County Courthouse
Johnson City, TX
Built in 1916 to a design by San Antonio architect Henry T. Phelps, the Blanco County Courthouse was the first permanent courthouse raised after the county seat moved from Blanco to Johnson City in 1890. Its Classical Revival limestone form, with Doric columns and a domed cupola, was contracted by stonemason James Waterston, a Scottish immigrant who had helped build the Texas Capitol. The building anchored the small Hill Country seat that would later become known as Lyndon Johnson's hometown.
Blanco County
Johnson City, TX
Blanco County was carved from the neighboring counties of Burnet, Hays, Gillespie, and Comal, created and organized in the spring of 1858 in the Texas Hill Country. It took its name from the Blanco River that winds through the region. Blanco City served as county seat until 1890, when the honor passed to Johnson City, where it remains.