Cloud Point

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker at Cloud Point has to say, and friend, this one earns every word of its name. Cloud Point. Even saying it out loud feels like you're standin' on the edge of something.

And you would be, because that's exactly what it is. A cliff, overlooking the Llano River valley on one side and the valley of Johnson Fork Creek on the other, right here in Kimble County. The kind of place where the land just drops away and the sky opens up, and for a long time, travelers coming through this rugged terrain knew exactly where they were the moment they saw it.

It was a landmark. A fixed point in an unfixed world. Soldiers and others journeying along these roads used Cloud Point to get their bearings, and out here, that mattered.

The name itself comes from the family of William Johnston Cloud, a Civil War veteran who purchased property in this part of Kimble County and located his home near this very site. His family's name got attached to that cliff, and it stuck the way good names do, the way geography has a long memory even when people forget. Now here's where the story gets bigger, because the roads that passed by Cloud Point weren't just local cattle trails.

We're talkin' the Upper Presidio Road, runnin' from Kerrville all the way to Fort McKavett. The Military Road connecting Fort Terrett to San Antonio. And then the transcontinental Old Spanish Trail.

Transcontinental. That cliff wasn't just a local feature. It was a waypoint on a road that stretched clean across a continent.

Soldiers, settlers, travelers of every kind; they all passed under that same sky, saw that same cliff, knew they were somewhere real. Since the 1970s, Cloud Point has been off the main route. The traffic moved on, as traffic does.

But that cliff is still there, still overlooking those two valleys, still a local point of interest, and some landmarks, it turns out, don't need a road to matter.

What the marker says

A landmark for many years for soldiers and others who journeyed along the roads that traversed this terrain, Cloud Point is the name given to the cliff overlooking the Llano River valley and the valley of Johnson Fork Creek. The geographic feature was named for the family of William Johnston Cloud, a Civil War veteran, who purchased property in this part of Kimble County and located his home near this site. Early roads that passed by Cloud Point included the Upper Presidio Road, from Kerrville to Fort McKavett; the Military Road from Fort Terrett to San Antonio; and the transcontinental Old Spanish Trail. No longer on the main route since the 1970s, Cloud Point remains a local point of interest. (2001)