Joe A. Kelley Home
Utopia, Uvalde County, Texas
Marker Inscription
One of Utopia community's few pioneer homes still standing. Built in 1865 by Joe A. Kelley, member of pioneer family that came to Old Waresville in 1852. Kelley bought several thousand acres of land from Lusgarda Grandee; established ranch and constructed two-room house with two back shed rooms. Walls preserved with shiplap exterior, beaded ceilings inside. Old Sabinal-Comanche trail crosses ranch property. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 1966.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
One of the few pioneer homes still standing in the Utopia community, this two-room house with back shed rooms was built in 1865 by Joe A. Kelley, whose family had reached Old Waresville in 1852. Kelley bought several thousand acres from Lusgarda Grandee and established a ranch crossed by the old Sabinal-Comanche trail. Its shiplap exterior and beaded ceilings preserve the craftsmanship of early Hill Country settlement.
Why it matters
Surviving pioneer ranch homes document the Anglo settlement of the Texas Hill Country in the mid-19th century, on land still crossed by the older Comanche trails that preceded it.
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Related people
- · Joe A. Kelley
- · Lusgarda Grandee
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
In This Vicinity June 24, 1841, Captain John Coffee Hays
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In June 1841, near this spot in the rugged hill country of the young Republic of Texas, Captain John Coffee Hays led a small company of Texas Rangers, aided by allied Mexican fighters under Captain Flores, in a sharp clash with a band of Comanche warriors. Such encounters were the grim, constant reality of a contested frontier where Rangers, settlers, and Comanche bands fought for control of the land. The State of Texas marked the site in 1936.
Waresville Cemetery
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The Waresville Cemetery is nearly all that remains of the Old Waresville Settlement on the Sabinal River, founded by Captain William Ware, a San Jacinto veteran who brought his family to the Sabinal Canyon in 1852. Ware fell ill and died within months, and his 1853 burial started the graveyard. By 1880 Waresville had grown into a thriving village of mills, gins, churches, and a school before being renamed Utopia in 1886. Among those buried here are the Ware family, Henry Fuller—a former slave of Captain Ware—early settlers, and victims of conflicts with local Indians.
Old Waresville
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Founded in 1852 by San Jacinto veteran Capt. William Ware, Waresville was the first nonmilitary settlement in Uvalde County, a cluster of log and native-stone homes tucked into Sabinal Canyon. Life on this frontier was perilous: settlers were lost to Indian raids between 1856 and 1866, and Ware himself was buried in the colony cemetery in 1853. Though the post office moved on to nearby Utopia in 1883, the cemetery, early homes, and the site of the first store still mark where the canyon was first settled.
Utopia
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After an 1886 Indian raid on their nearby home, the Kincheloe family relocated here, built a home and a two-story rock store, and platted a town they first called "Montana," donating land for churches, a school, and a square. Congregations gathered even before the town was formally founded, and a postmaster later rechristened it "Utopia" in praise of the climate. The frontier settlement grew into a center for ranching and, in time, retirement and recreation in the Hill Country.