Frio Town
Frio Town, Frio County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Known 1871-1886 as Frio City; First county seat of Frio County 1871-1883. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Known as Frio City between 1871 and 1886, this settlement served as the first county seat of Frio County from 1871 to 1883. The State of Texas erected the marker in 1936 to commemorate a townsite whose brief prominence faded as county government moved on. Little of the original town's civic role survived its loss of the courthouse.
Why it matters
Frio Town's short reign as county seat reflects the fluid, shifting geography of authority in newly organized frontier counties.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Frio Town Cemetery
Frio Town, TX
Frio Town rose in 1871 as the first seat of Frio County, gaining a courthouse and settlers' homes, until the International and Great Northern Railroad bypassed it in 1881 and the county seat moved to rail-served Pearsall. Its cemetery, with burials beginning in 1873, is one of the community's last physical traces. The graves tell a stark frontier story — pioneers like the Slaughters lie here, along with settlers killed in Indian raids, including six men buried in a single row after an 1876 attack, and many infants lost to harsh conditions.
Kincaid Ranch and Hotel
Batesville, TX
William Davis Kincaid learned the cattle trade in West Texas before bringing his family in 1905 to land he bought southeast of Uvalde, building one of the region's notable ranches and serving as a bank and school-board president before his death in 1914. In his honor his family raised the Kincaid Hotel in Uvalde in 1927, which became the business and social hub where ranchers from across the region made "The Kincaid" their headquarters.
Tehuacana Cemetery
Pearsall, TX
Deeded from the land of James and Amanda Bandy, Tehuacana Cemetery received its first burial in 1875, and the surrounding community soon added acreage for a log church, a school, and a frame parsonage. The graveyard holds the region's early pioneers, including victims of the smallpox epidemics that swept through in 1882–1884 and a dozen Confederate veterans. When the church relocated to Medina County in 1900, the cemetery endured as a record of frontier settlement.
Frio County
Pearsall, TX
Though Spanish explorers passed through this brushy South Texas country as early as 1690, Frio County was not organized until after the Civil War. The county seat shifted from Frio City to Pearsall when the International & Great Northern Railroad arrived in 1883, and in 1876 a Texas Ranger camp under Major John B. Jones guarded settlers against raids. The legendary frontiersman "Big Foot" Wallace spent his last years here.