Sulphur Park
Shiner, Lavaca County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the summer of 1930, farmer/rancher and large landowner Jake Kurtz set aside four acres of his property on the west side of the newly-paved Texas State Highway 95 between Shiner and Moulton to build a large concrete swimming pool and recreational area. He named it “Sulphur Park” after the rich sulphur-laced mineral water coming from a newly dug 73-foot well adjacent to the property on the north bank of the nearby Ponton Creek. The pool was excavated that summer by George Jassen using horse and mule-drawn scrapers and heavy equipment. The Shiner Light Plant worked for two months that summer to extend the electrical line out to Mr. Kurtz’s Property. Measuring 120 feet long by 40 feet wide, the pool featured a deep side for diving and shallow side for wading. Outdoor wooden picnic tables were added under large trees for shade as well as bath houses, a concession stand, adjoining baseball field, a covered concrete dance floor and country store. The pool’s grand opening, or “Splash Day,” was Sunday, August 31, 1930. Hundreds attended the opening and feasted on barbeque and enjoyed a turkey shoot sponsored by the Shiner Gun Club, baseball tournament, and music provided by Schultz Band. The pool was open in the summer months and the park area continuously in good weather and attracted thousands of people, sometimes in one day. As the only pool in the area and with family atmosphere, Sulphur Park became a haven for the community, especially during hard times. For more than sixty years, Sulphur Park was an oasis in the country for the Shiner and Moulton communities and contributed to the recreational history of the area.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the summer of 1930, landowner Jake Kurtz set aside four acres beside the newly paved State Highway 95 to build a huge concrete swimming pool fed by a sulphur-laced mineral well. Excavated with horse- and mule-drawn scrapers, the 120-foot pool opened on "Splash Day" that August with barbecue, a turkey shoot, a baseball tournament, and live music before hundreds of visitors. For over sixty years Sulphur Park—with its dance floor, ball field, and picnic grounds—was a beloved country oasis for the Shiner and Moulton communities.
Why it matters
It reflects how homegrown recreation spots gave rural Texans a shared refuge and simple joy through the Depression and the decades that followed.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Jake Kurtz
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Half Moon
Shiner, TX
Named for the crescent shape of its timber, Half Moon on Rocky Creek was a gathering place for Native peoples and travelers long before Spanish explorers noted it in 1689. Settlers arrived from the 1830s to trade and farm, and at its height in the mid-1880s the community boasted stores, a saloon, and a post office. When Henry B. Shiner donated land for a railroad in 1887, the rails bypassed Half Moon, and its people and commerce drained away into the new town of Shiner.
Old Sweet Home
Sweet Home, TX
Settled in the mid-1800s along the old Spanish trail between Houston and San Antonio, Sweet Home grew into a thriving trading and stagecoach stop after a post office opened in 1852. During the Civil War it sheltered Confederate winter camps and freight wagons hauling supplies toward Brownsville, and afterward it became ranching country, with cattleman George West and an influx of Czech and German immigrants. When the railroad laid tracks five miles south in 1887, businesses relocated and the original townsite faded into a cemetery and a few scattered remnants.
Wreck of the Don Milo
Halletsville, TX
The San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway reached Hallettsville in April 1887 amid a celebration that drew 5,000 people. Less than three years later, on a flood-swollen January night in 1890, engine no. 54 — the Don Milo — plunged into the raging Lavaca River after the trestle behind it washed away. Spectators broke into the liquor spilling from the wreck, adding chaos to catastrophe, and the resulting lawsuits helped push the struggling railroad into the arms of the Southern Pacific by 1892.
Rabb Switch
Hallettsville, TX
La Grange native Dr. Edward M. Rabb settled in this area in the 1880s and bought more than two thousand acres, leaving instructions in his will for a wood-and-water switch to serve a coming railroad. When the San Antonio and Aransas Pass line crossed the Navidad River in 1887, the switch was built and locals loaded firewood bound for Houston, later farming the cleared land in cotton and corn. Two stores and a school followed, but after the railroad shut down in the 1950s and the school closed in 1953, the little community faded.