Mt. Gainer
Dripping Springs, Hays County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Pioneer rancher Joseph P. Gainer, known as Grandpa Gainer, settled 320 acres of land approximately three miles north of this site in 1858. The highest point in the area, located on Gainer's land, was called Mt. Gainer. A small farming and ranching community also called Mt. Gainer evolved along the south fork of Onion Creek. The name Mt. Gainer appeared on county maps as early as 1877. At that time a post office was opened; it closed two years later. In the early years of the twentieth century, the village included two general stores, a gristmill, a molasses mill, a Methodist congregation, and a Baptist church established in 1907. A one-room schoolhouse was erected through the efforts of area settlers in 1906 on land donated by resident Charlie Seal. In 1908 a farmer's union was formed to promote further development of the area. The union played a significant role in the social life of the community; the school building provided a place for worship, education, and social gatherings. A two-room school erected in 1921 quickly expanded. A staff of three taught area children until 1944 when the Mt. Gainer School District was consolidated with Dripping Springs schools. In 1998, the school cistern and steps, a teacherage, native rock fences, and a few buildings on private land were all that remained of this once thriving village. (1998)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Pioneer rancher Joseph "Grandpa" Gainer settled here in 1858, and the high point on his land gave its name to the farming and ranching community that grew along the south fork of Onion Creek. By the early twentieth century Mt. Gainer had general stores, mills, churches, a school, and a farmers' union that anchored its social life. After the school consolidated with Dripping Springs in 1944, the village faded, leaving only rock fences and a few buildings behind.
Why it matters
Mt. Gainer's rise and decline mirrors the fate of countless small agricultural communities across the Texas Hill Country.
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Related people
- · Joseph P. Gainer
- · Charlie Seal
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mt. Gainer Village
Hays County, TX
Mt. Gainer was once a thriving rural Texas settlement, complete with its own school, that slowly emptied as the twentieth century wore on. By 1998 only fragments remained — a school cistern and steps, a teacherage, native rock fences, and a scattering of buildings on private land — the quiet skeleton of a community that had faded away. It stands among the many small crossroads settlements that rose and vanished across the Texas Hill Country.
W. T. Chapman
Dripping Springs, TX
Georgia-born William Thomas Chapman came to the Dripping Springs area after being wounded and captured in the Civil War, and by the 1870s had become the community's postmaster, stagecoach operator, and driving civic force. He gave land for a church, a Baptist congregation, and the Dripping Springs Academy, and in 1881 platted the town itself from his wife Martha's inherited acreage, naming the main street for their son. A merchant and Confederate-veterans organizer, he helped found Camp Ben McCulloch.
Peal-Pleasant Valley Cemetery
Wimberley, TX
This 1.7-acre cemetery, with its 23 known graves, is nearly all that remains of an early Hays County community. Settlement began with North Carolina native John Bennett Peal, who with his wife Mary bought 1,920 acres in 1872 and helped found Pleasant Valley Baptist Church in 1875; the church also housed the Valley Ford School. Children from the Burchett, Edwards, George, and other pioneer families made the schoolhouse the center of Blanco Valley life, and several of those family names rest in the cemetery today.
Robert Eanes
Austin, TX
South Carolina–born Robert Eanes brought his family to Travis County in 1872, following a brother who had settled the area decades earlier. Buying a ranch from that brother, he built the first school in the neighborhood, and both the community and the school came to bear the Eanes name. He was laid to rest here in 1895 beside his wife, Eliza.