Hunt
Hunt, Kerr County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Farmers and ranchers settled along the North and South Forks of the Guadalupe River in the late 1850s, forming the Japonica and Pebble communities. In 1912, Alva and Lizzie Joy bought land at the confluence and named the central settlement that developed there in honor of Robert Hunt, the prior landowner. Alva Joy established a post office in 1913, and an independent school district formed in the 1930s. By the 1930s, the area began attracting artists, including the acclaimed E.M. Schiwetz. During the next decades, Hunt became a center for summer camps, exotic game ranches, and religious and corporate retreat facilities, but retained its identity as a small, rural community. (2005)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Farmers and ranchers settled the forks of the Guadalupe River in the late 1850s, forming the Japonica and Pebble communities. In 1912 Alva and Lizzie Joy bought land at the confluence and named the new settlement for prior owner Robert Hunt; a post office followed in 1913. By the 1930s the area drew artists like E.M. Schiwetz and grew into a hub of summer camps and retreats while staying a small rural community.
Why it matters
Hunt reflects how many Hill Country hamlets reinvented themselves as recreation and camp destinations in the 20th century without losing their frontier-settlement roots.
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Related people
- · Alva Joy
- · Lizzie Joy
- · Robert Hunt
- · E.M. Schiwetz
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hunt Japonica Cemetery
Hunt, TX
The Hunt Japonica Cemetery lies between the town of Hunt and the early community of Japonica, its oldest legible stone marking the 1872 grave of George T. Henry, sixteen years after Kerr County was organized. It holds many area pioneers and their descendants, along with a large number of unmarked graves. Though flooded on several occasions, the cemetery remains in use.
Cade House
Ingram, TX
Alabama native Guilford Marion Cade served as a doctor in the Confederate Army before moving to Texas in 1865 and, in 1883, bringing his family to Kerr County. After a storm destroyed the family's log cabin, his son built a frame house, and in the early 1930s a grandson and great-grandson raised this two-story stone house on a high hill — its irregular rubble masonry doubling as a demonstration model for the builder's carpentry clients.
Old Ingram
Ingram, TX
Settlers reached this Hill Country valley before the Civil War, but the town took shape in 1879 when the Rev. J. C. W. Ingram, a Church of Christ minister from California, bought land here and opened a general store and post office. A community grew around the store and thrived for fifty years as a commercial center, until a new highway in the 1930s pulled businesses away and the original townsite was abandoned. Today Old Ingram lives on as an arts colony of studios and galleries.
The Dowdy Tragedy of 1878
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In 1878 the Dowdy family moved from Goliad to the Texas Hill Country, settling along Johnson Creek in Kerr County. Only weeks after they arrived, four of the children — Alice, Martha, Susan, and James — were killed in an Indian raid while tending sheep near their home, and were buried the next day at Sunset Cemetery. The attack, on October 5, 1878, was among the last such raids in the county.