Echo Stagecoach Depot and Post Office
Lagarto, Live Oak County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Known as "Mount Echo" or "The Point", this site once belonged to empresario James McGloin. His daughter and son-in-law, Elizabeth and Patrick Murphy, ran a general store at Echo. John Bernard Murphy (1822?-1884) and his wife Margaret Mary (Healy) (1833-1907), both born in Ireland, settled here in the 1850's and built a two story ranch house. J.B. Murphy, who was not related to Patrick Murphy, was later mayor of Corpus Christi. A one-story building near the J.B. Murphy ranch house served as a station for stagecoach lines from San Antonio to Corpus Christi and south Texas. It housed the Echo Post Office from 1858 until 1879. The stage road through echo was a dry weather route along the East Bank of the Nueces River. A higher caliche road that was passable in wet seasons served stage stops on the west side of the river. Until the arrival of the railroad in this area, the echo depot and post office provided a vital link with the outside world. In the 1880's, Margaret Mary Murphy moved to San Antonio and founded the Sisters of the Holy Ghost. She used the ranch as a retreat for nuns and converted the Echo depot into a chapel. R.F. Sellers bought the property in 1906 and used the building for storage. It was demolished by hurricane Celia in 1970. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Perched above the Nueces River at a spot called "Mount Echo," this site on empresario James McGloin's old grant became a vital link on the road between San Antonio and Corpus Christi. Irish-born settlers John Bernard and Margaret Mary Murphy built a two-story ranch house here in the 1850s, and a nearby building served as a stagecoach station and housed the Echo Post Office from 1858 to 1879. Later Margaret Mary Murphy, founder of the Sisters of the Holy Ghost, turned the old depot into a chapel and retreat before it was finally leveled by Hurricane Celia in 1970.
Why it matters
Way stations like Echo were the lifelines of pre-railroad Texas, carrying mail, travelers, and news across a dry, thinly settled country until the rails made them obsolete.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John Bernard Murphy
- · Margaret Mary Murphy
- · James McGloin
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lagarto Cemetery
Lagarto, TX
Lagarto Cemetery traces its origin to the early 1870s, when an unknown traveler died at the home of storekeepers Samuel and Mary Beall and was buried on their land; in 1876 they formally deeded two acres for a community cemetery. Among those laid to rest here are Texas Ranger Charles Fusselman, killed in Presidio County in 1890, and John Pollan, a veteran of the Texas war for independence. Though the ranching town of Lagarto declined after the railroad bypassed it in 1887, descendants of its pioneers have kept the cemetery in use ever since.
Thomas Henry Mathis Ranch
Mathis, TX
After the Coleman, Mathis, Fulton Cattle Company dissolved in 1879, Thomas Henry Mathis founded the 24,000-acre Henry Bend Ranch on a bend of the Nueces River, fencing thousands of acres with wooden planks and even raising prized polo ponies trained for buyers in England. Sensing the value of the railroad, he donated a right-of-way to the San Antonio & Aransas Pass line in 1887 and platted the fenced townsite of Mathis in 1889. The ranch headquarters near this site stood until 1953.
Town of Dinero
Dinero, TX
Settled in 1838 by farmers and ranchers, this town began as "Barlow" after a local ferry operator, and its people helped organize Live Oak County in 1856 and started a school by 1858. Around 1872, rumors of buried "dinero"—Spanish for money—gave the town its lasting name. It moved a mile west in 1913 to meet a new rail line, later piped natural gas toward Houston, and counted among its residents the celebrated Texas folklorist J. Frank Dobie.
Gussettville
Gussettville, TX
Gussettville began in the 1830s when Irish Catholic settlers of the McMullen and McGloin colony put down roots in South Texas, first calling the place "Fox Nation" before renaming it for storekeeper N. Gussett in the 1850s. The community built the first Catholic church in Live Oak County in 1874 on land donated by Thomas and Anne Shannon, and thrived as a stop on the San Antonio–Brownsville stagecoach line. Like hundreds of similar towns, it withered once the railroad passed it by, leaving the church as its chief surviving landmark.