San Marcos Springs
San Marcos, Hays County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Pouring forth millions of gallons of clear, icy water daily, these springs feed the san Marcos River and the 1,380-square-mile area which it drains. The immense springs rise at the Balcones Escarpment, a geologic fault line which slices across the state, separating upland from lowland Texas. The abundance of fresh water made these springs a mecca for the Indians who inhabited Central Texas and later for the European explorers and settlers who followed. The name San Marcos was first given to a Texas River by the Alonso de Leon Expedition on April 26, 1689 (Saint Mark's Day). The name was not applied to the present river, however, until 1709. Other explorers inspected this area and in 1755 it became a temporary site for several Spanish missions. Almost a century later, in 1845, pioneers William W. Moon and Mike Sessom made a permanent settlement here. In 1851 Gen. Edward Burleson, william Lindsey, and Eli t. Merriman bought the adjacent land and on it laid out the town of San Marcos. Attracted by the scenic beauty of the area, A. B. Rogers started a park here in 1926. Over the years it has been developed into "Aquarena Springs," one of Central Texas' most popular tourist attractions.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Rising along the Balcones Escarpment, the San Marcos Springs pour out millions of gallons of clear, cold water daily and feed the San Marcos River. Their abundance drew Indigenous peoples for millennia, then Spanish explorers—who named the river on St. Mark's Day in 1689—and mission builders in 1755, before permanent settlers arrived in 1845 and General Edward Burleson and partners platted the town of San Marcos in 1851. In 1926 the springs were developed into the Aquarena Springs tourist park.
Why it matters
One of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in North America, the springs show how reliable fresh water shaped human settlement from Native peoples through Spanish colonization to the modern Texas town.
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Related people
- · Alonso de León
- · Edward Burleson
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
William W. Moon
San Marcos, TX
William W. Moon, orphaned in infancy in Alabama, came to Texas in 1838 and rode with the Texas Rangers, first seeing the San Marcos Springs during a running Indian fight in 1843. Enchanted by the country, he brought his family to build a cabin here in 1845, making the Moons the first permanent Anglo-American settlers of what became Hays County. His cabin hosted the county's first sermon and first school, and he later served in both the Mexican War and the Civil War while running a hotel, stage stop, blacksmith shop, and freight line.
Don Felipe Roque de la Portilla
San Marcos, TX
In 1807, at the request of Spanish Texas's governor, the Army captain and rancher Felipe Roque de la Portilla led more than fifty settlers to found San Marcos de Neve where El Camino Real crossed the San Marcos River. The colony issued town lots and built homes around a plaza, but floods, missing supplies, and raids by Comanches and Tonkawas broke it; by 1812 Portilla led his people back toward the Rio Grande. He remained a prominent frontier leader, later helping establish another Texas colony.
Indian Mott Skirmish
Wimberley, TX
In the spring of 1840, peace talks between Texas and the Comanche collapsed in the bloody Council House Fight at San Antonio, and raiding surged along the frontier. That August, after a sweeping raid on the coastal town of Linnville, a large Comanche band was intercepted near Plum Creek by Texas Rangers and volunteers in a sprawling running fight. Local tradition holds that a handful of warriors were chased to this horseshoe bend of Lone Man Creek, where they hid in the tall grass and an oak mott until nightfall let them slip away, burying their dead beneath flat stones by moonlight.
Battle of Plum Creek
Lockhart, TX
By 1840 the young Republic of Texas and the Comanche and Kiowa nations were locked in escalating violence, inflamed by President Lamar's aggressive policies and the deadly Council House Fight in San Antonio. In revenge, a large war party swept to the coast and sacked Linnville before turning inland laden with plunder. On August 12, 1840, Texan volunteers under Felix Huston, Edward Burleson, and Mathew Caldwell—joined by Tonkawa allies—intercepted them at Plum Creek in a running fight across the prairie.