Cottage Hill was a settlement that once existed in eastern Bexar County, Texas, United States. [1] [2]
In the 1840s the Irvin family settled at the 18 mile marker on the San Antonio to Gonzales road. Soon after, D. A. Saltmarsh established there a stagecoach stop. In 1855, two wealthy speculators, Gideon Lee and Joseph Beck, purchased land and laid out a town called Cottage Hill. Henry Bowers opened the 20 mile house just east of town, soon William A. Jackson opened a general store and was the first postmaster. [3]
After the end of the Civil War Cottage Hill became known for lawlessness and violence. In 1876 a well known gunfight happened in Cottage Hill, in which Tom Secrest and William Irvin were killed, James Applewhite of La Vernia was brought before a grand jury but was released. A gang of 12 young men who robbed and terrorized the area called themselves the Cottage Hill gang. In 1877 John Humphrey was ambushed bringing mail from San Antonio and died a day later. This incident caused the post office to be transferred to nearby Saint Hedwig. The result was a steady decline of Cottage Hill as businesses moved to Saint Hedwig. [3] [4]
As of 2021, only forgotten ruins and gravestones remain where the town of Cottage Hill once stood. [3]
San Antonio, officially the City of San Antonio, is a city in and the county seat of Bexar County, Texas, United States. The city is the seventh-most populous in the United States, the second-largest in the Southern United States, and the second-most populous in Texas after Houston. San Antonio is the largest city of the San Antonio–New Braunfels metropolitan statistical area. Commonly called Greater San Antonio, the metropolitan area had a population of 2,601,788 based on the 2020 U.S. census estimates, making it the 24th-largest metropolitan area in the United States and third-largest in Texas.
Gonzales County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas, adjacent to Greater Austin-San Antonio. As of the 2020 census, its population was 19,653. The county is named for its county seat, the city of Gonzales. The county was created in 1836 and organized the following year. As of August 2020, under strict budgetary limitations, the County of Gonzales government-body is unique in that it claims to have no commercial paper, regarding it as "the absence of any county debt."
Bexar County is a county in the U.S. state of Texas. It is in South Texas and its county seat is San Antonio.
St. Hedwig is a rural town in Bexar County, Texas, United States founded by German and Polish emigrants in 1852. The population was 2,227 at the 2020 census. It is part of the San Antonio Metropolitan Statistical Area. It was founded by German and Polish emigrants and named for Saint Hedwig, a prominent Germanic saint in the Catholic Church.
Gonzales is a city in the U.S. state of Texas, with a population of 7,165 at the 2020 census. It is the county seat of Gonzales County. The "Come and Take It" incident, the ride of the Immortal 32 into the Alamo, and the Runaway Scrape after the fall of the Alamo, all integral events in the War for Texas Independence from Mexico, originated in Gonzales.
Geronimo is an unincorporated community and census-designated place (CDP) in Guadalupe County, Texas, United States. The population was 1,032 at the 2010 census, up from 619 at the 2000 census. It is part of the San Antonio Metropolitan Statistical Area.
Seguin is a city in and the county seat of Guadalupe County, Texas, United States; as of the 2020 census, its population was 29,433. Its economy is primarily supported by a regional hospital, as well as the Schertz-Seguin Local Government Corporation water-utility, that supplies the surrounding Greater San Antonio areas from nearby aquifers as far as Gonzales County. Several dams in the surrounding area are governed by the main offices of the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority, headquartered in downtown Seguin.
Fort Stockton is a city in and the county seat of Pecos County, Texas, United States. It is located on Interstate 10, future Interstate 14, U.S. Highways 67, 285, and 385, and the Santa Fe Railroad, 329 mi (529 km) northwest of San Antonio and 240 mi (390 km) southeast of El Paso. Its population was 8,466 at the 2020 census.
Nixon is a city, self-described as a "compact neighborhood," at U.S. Highway 87 and the junction of Karnes, Gonzales and Wilson counties; alongside the Clear Fork Creek in the Juan J. Tejada League, in the U.S. state of Texas. Approaching 100 city blocks, the Nixon urban-area is defined by its schools at its north-end in the neighborhood of Rancho; with the southwest boundary hosting its industrial park and meat packing facilities, upon the 87-corridor towards Pandora and the county seat of Floresville.
The Battle of Gonzales was the first military engagement of the Texas Revolution. It was fought near Gonzales, Texas, on October 2, 1835, between rebellious Texian settlers and a detachment of Mexican army soldiers.
The Missouri–Kansas–Texas Railroad was a Class I railroad company in the United States, with its last headquarters in Dallas, Texas. Established in 1865 under the name Union Pacific Railroad (UP), Southern Branch, it came to serve an extensive rail network in Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri. In 1988, it merged with the Missouri Pacific Railroad; today, it is part of UP.
The Old Spanish Trail was an auto trail that once spanned the United States with almost 2,750 miles (4,430 km) of roadway from ocean to ocean. It crossed eight states and 67 counties along the southern border of the United States. Work on the auto highway began in 1915 at a meeting held at the Battle House Hotel in Mobile, Alabama; and, by the 1920s, the trail linked St. Augustine, Florida, to San Diego, California, with its center and headquarters in San Antonio, Texas. The work at San Antonio, and indeed nationally, was overseen by an executive committee consisting of prominent San Antonio businessmen which met at the Gunter Hotel weekly.
To the People of Texas & All Americans in the World, commonly referred to as the Victory or Death letter, is an open letter written on February 24, 1836, by William B. Travis, commander of the Texian forces at the Battle of the Alamo, to settlers in Mexican Texas. The letter is renowned as a "declaration of defiance" and a "masterpiece of American patriotism", and forms part of the history education of Texas schoolchildren.
The Dawson massacre, also called the Dawson expedition, was an incident in which 36 Texian militiamen were killed by Mexican soldiers on September 17, 1842 near San Antonio de Bexar. The event occurred during the Battle of Salado Creek, which ended with a Texian victory. This was among numerous armed conflicts over the area between the Rio Grande and Nueces rivers, which the Republic of Texas tried to control after achieving independence in 1836.
Leesville is an unincorporated city of 384 residents distributed over 51 square miles in the Gonzales—Guadalupe County area in Texas, United States, electorally known as local Precinct 13; defined by the south of its Capote Hills at the "Leesville Quad" intersection and the north of Sandies Creek, twelve miles southeast of Seguin. Beginning in the 19th-century, the municipal identity of Leesville was founded upon being one of the first Justice of the Peace Precincts of its original county-area, as prescribed in the Texas Constitution; as well as once generally serving as the primary seat of a former Texas House District 90, once rated at more than 1,000 constituents. Straddling and nearing the southeastern border of Guadalupe County, the real estate origins of Leesville go back to the 1800s survey-plots of Texas Revolution figures Ezekiel Wimberly Cullen and Count Joseph de la Baume of France ; the latter retaining Texas's founding father Stephen F. Austin as an attorney, to reacquire the early-1800s Spanish land-tract, after Mexico's Independence from Spain in 1825. Divided by Farm to Market Road 1682 joining with Gonzales—Guadalupe County Road 121 West, Leesville's northern territory is closest to the Austin Metropolitan Areas through Texas State Highway 80 / U.S. Route 183 in Texas, while the southern territory is closest to the San Antonio Metropolitan Areas through Texas State Highway 97 / U.S. Route 87 in Texas.
Hedwigs Hill is an unincorporated farming and ranching community, established in 1853, just off U.S. Highway 87, located 5 miles (8.0 km) south of Art in southern Mason County, Texas, United States.
Matthew Caldwell,, also spelled Mathew Caldwell was a 19th-century Texas settler, military figure, Captain of the Gonzales – Seguin Rangers and a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence. Because of his recruitment ride ahead of the Battle of Gonzales, some call him the Paul Revere of Texas.
Bankersmith is a ghost town in Kendall County, Texas, United States. The town was founded in 1913. It lies approximately halfway between Fredericksburg and Comfort, near the border of Gillespie County.
Farm to Market Road 466 is a farm to market road, a state maintained road which serves to connect the agricultural area Leesville-Belmont to market towns, in the U.S. state of Texas. It is located in Guadalupe and Gonzales counties. The road is 34.4 miles (55.4 km) long. Locally it has been known as Capote Road for more than 100 years.
Union is a populated place and CDP in Wilson County, Texas, United States. The area is named for the local ghost town that was originally named "Union Valley." Today, the extant community of Union is located on FM Road 1681, about 56 miles southeast of San Antonio. The cemetery—still visible—used by the town's early inhabitants, contains the grave of Jane Bowen, the wife of outlaw John Wesley Hardin.