Major Israel M. Nunez
Stonewall, Gillespie County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1841-1906) Civil War veteran and stage line operator who in 1870 founded Stonewall, naming it for Confederate General "Stonewall" Jackson. Major Nunez, who lived 2 miles south of town and had a family of 9 children, donated land in 1886 for Stonewall School No. 18.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A Civil War veteran turned stage-line operator, Israel M. Nunez founded the community of Stonewall in 1870 and named it in tribute to Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson. Raising a family of nine south of town, Nunez helped anchor the settlement by donating land in 1886 for Stonewall School No. 18. His life traces the arc of a defeated Confederacy rebuilding itself in the Texas Hill Country.
Why it matters
The town's very name shows how Confederate memory shaped the identity of new communities across the postwar South and West.
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Related people
- · Israel M. Nunez
- · Stonewall Jackson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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As a twelve-year-old, the future 36th President attended eighth-grade classes at the old Stonewall school from October 1920 to June 1921. The one-year stint places young Lyndon Baines Johnson in the small Hill Country schoolhouses that shaped his early years before his rise through Texas and national politics.
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