Sutherland Springs
Sutherland Spring, Wilson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Outstanding early-day Southwest Texas health spa. Had 27 flavors of mineral water, from over 100 hot and cold springs. (Indians used curative waters here before white settlement.) Resort was founded in 1848 by Dr. John Sutherland (1792-1867), who had been at the Alamo when Santa Anna came on Feb. 23, 1836, but was sent out by Travis to summon aid. Sutherland built plantation home on bluff west of the Cibolo, across from wooded valley of springs. Patients boarded in his home, homes of neighbors, or rented cottages at the springs. Most common mineral waters were white sulphur, black sulphur, hume sour. Hot springs were especially popular in treating rheumatic diseases. Sutherland Springs was stagecoach stop on Old San Antonio Road. In 1854 Dr. Sutherland had a British teacher lay off square and town as seen today. In 1860, when Wilson County was created, this was county seat. Reconstruction Judge Wm. Longsworth demanded $250 to keep county seat here, and failing to get it hauled court records to Lodi, later to Floresville. In 1909, "New Sutherland Springs", on lowland acres formerly held by Gideon Lee, had a 52-room hotel, the largest concrete pool in south, church encampments. Floods in 1913 made that resort a ghost town. (1966)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1848 by Dr. John Sutherland — the Alamo courier whom William B. Travis sent out for reinforcements in 1836 — Sutherland Springs became one of southwest Texas's premier health resorts, drawing visitors to more than 100 hot and cold mineral springs long used for their curative waters. A stagecoach stop on the Old San Antonio Road, it served as the first seat of Wilson County in 1860 before politics moved the county seat away. A later resort boom at "New Sutherland Springs" collapsed after devastating floods in 1913 left it a ghost town.
Why it matters
The spa reflects the 19th-century American faith in mineral-water healing and the boom-and-bust fate of Texas resort towns, tied to a survivor of the Alamo itself.
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Related people
- · Dr. John Sutherland
- · William B. Travis
- · William Longsworth
Related events
- · Battle of the Alamo
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Sutherland Springs Cemetery
Sutherland Springs, TX
Dr. John Sutherland, a Virginia-born physician, came to Texas in 1835 and was helping ready the Alamo's defense when a horse accident left him unable to fight; Col. Travis instead sent him riding to Gonzales for help, and the Mexican army stormed the fort before aid could come. Sutherland later settled near the sulphur springs on the Cibolo, boarding health-seekers in his home, which became a stop on the San Antonio–to–coast stage line. He set aside about five acres as a community cemetery in 1860, and the ground now holds Texas Rangers, veterans, officials, and residents of every background who built Wilson County.
Rector Chapel Cemetery
La Vernia, TX
This cemetery grew from the friendship of two early La Vernia settlers: William Wiseman, who ran the town's first cotton gin, and William Claiborne Rector, a veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto who farmed, carried the mail, and supplied horses for the stage line. Together they organized the Cibolo Presbyterian Church in 1852, and after Rector's death Wiseman built a new chapel on his farm named in his friend's honor, setting aside four acres in 1877 for worship and burial. Though the chapel itself was moved to town in 1891, the weathered gravestones still mark the community's founding generation.
Old Chihuahua Road
La Vernia, TX
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La Vernia
La Vernia, TX
Founded about 1846–47 by Claiborne Rector, who built a stage stop and blacksmith shop to serve travelers on the Chihuahua Road, this Wilson County settlement grew up along one of early Texas's major trails—still traced by Main Street today. First called 'Post Oak,' it was renamed for the green oaks of the area when mail service began in 1856. Settled largely by Southerners seeking fertile land, it became a Civil War recruiting and officer-training center.