![]() The San Marcos Baptist Academy opened in 1907. ![]() The first telephone company opened in 1899.Īlready a regional center for education, San Marcos received another boost with the chartering of the Southwest State Normal School in 1899, and its opening in 1903. In 1896, the population of San Marcos was estimated at 3,000, and there were two hotels, three newspapers, a bakery and a restaurant in town. The first electric company and ice factory were founded in 1883, to be replaced just ten years later with newer more modern facilities the streets were graveled by 1890. In the two decades following the arrival of the railroad, whole neighborhoods of fine Victorian houses were built. A fine new courthouse was built in 1882 by then the town boasted two banks, an opera house and dozens of stores and other businesses. The line was later extended to San Antonio, and the population of San Marcos grew rapidly from just 742 in 1870 to 2,335 in 1890. The first trains arrived in 1880, when the International-Great Northern Railroad completed its line from Austin. The San Marcos public school system was organized in 1870. The private Coronal Institute was founded in San Marcos in 1868 to provide military training for boys by the fall of 1869, it employed eight faculty members and 130 students were enrolled. Farming and cattle drives brought relative prosperity to Hays County. And while the growth slowed temporarily during the Civil War, it resumed immediately afterward. He built the first large stone house in San Marcos, and participated actively in the town’s growth caravans of settlers arrived from Mississippi and Georgia the population of the county grew from 387 in 1850 to 2,126 in 1860. General Burleson died in 1851, but his son (also named Edward) went on to become a leading citizen. San Marcos became a stop on the stage line from Austin to San Antonio in 1848 the first church was organized in 1847, and the first school in 1849. Merriman) laid out the town of San Marcos as the county seat. The war hero and former Texas vice-president worked to establish a new county, named for renowned Texas Ranger Captain John Coffee Hays, and (with Dr. The fledgling community received a huge boost in security and prestige when General Edward Burleson moved there in 1848. ![]() Merriman, who arrived after Texas joined the United States in 1845. Among the first to settle at the present site of San Marcos were William W. He began farming north of the present-day townsite. McGehee, who had been issued a league of land by the Mexican government in 1835. The first Anglo-American settler in the area was Thomas G. By 1814, the area was once again “Indian territory.” The longest lasting settlement was San Marcos de Neve, a community of several dozen from 1807 until about 1812. San Marcos is blessed with fertile fields, abundant wildlife, spectacular scenery and a never-ending supply of cool, clear water.įrom about 1691 until the Mexican Revolution in the early 1800s, Spanish explorers and settlers used the nearby “Camino Real,” also called the San Antonio Highway, and several attempts were made to establish a mission around the remarkable San Marcos Springs, where millions of gallons of clear water from the Edwards Aquifer bubble up from the earth each day. To the east of San Marcos lies the vast black land prairie the beautiful Texas Hill Country rises dramatically to the west. If location is the major factor in determining the value of property, then San Marcos has been prime real estate for thousands of years the unique San Marcos River area is considered by many to be the longest continuously inhabited area in the Northern Hemisphere.
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