Dixie Settlement

Duane's take

The way the marker tells it, here's the story of a place that used to go by a different name entirely. This one comes straight off an Edwards County historical marker. Duane's just along for the ride.

Now, before there was ever a Barksdale, Texas, there was a Dixie. Named for Camp Dixie, a Texas Ranger post sitting out near the Military Road to Fort Inge, forty-two miles to the southeast. That's the kind of country where things get named for what's already out there, a camp, a post, a road running toward a fort.

That was the anchor for everything that followed. The first civilian settler to put down roots in that stretch of the Nueces Canyon was a woman named Jerusha Sanchez. She was the midwife for the whole canyon area, the kind of person a frontier community absolutely cannot do without.

She had been widowed by Indians in the 1870s, and she stayed anyway. That tells you something about Jerusha Sanchez that no marker needs to spell out any further. Next came Elizabeth Hill, whose eldest son Jim made his name as a military scout.

So already you've got this little settlement drawing people shaped by hard country, a widowed midwife, a scout's family, folks who knew what it meant to live out at the edge of things. Then along came Lewis Barksdale. He was a veteran of the Republic of Texas wars, which is to say he had already seen his share of history before he ever filed a land grant in 1876.

He opened a ranch on that land, and his name started carrying weight in the area. The community kept growing, and it needed a center of gravity. The J.

R. , Bob, Sweeten family provided it, establishing a store that became the focus for the expanding settlement. A store has a way of doing that. You need something, you go to the store.

You go to the store, you see your neighbors. You see your neighbors, you've got a community. And then, in 1882, a post office was created.

When they named it, they named it Barksdale, for Lewis Barksdale, the Republic of Texas veteran with the 1876 land grant. And just like that, quietly, the name Dixie disappeared from use. The place kept right on going.

It just stopped answering to its old name.

What the marker says

(Forerunner of Barksdale) Named for Camp Dixie, a Texas Ranger post near Military Road to Fort Inge (42 mi. SE). First civilian settler was Jerusha Sanchez, midwife for Nueces Canyon area, widowed by Indians in the 1870s. Next came Elizabeth Hill, whose eldest son Jim was a military scout. Lewis Barksdale, a veteran of Republic of Texas wars, opened a ranch on his 1876 land grant. The J. R. (Bob) Sweeten family established a store that became the focus for the expanding community. When a post office was created in 1882 and named for Lewis Barksdale, the name Dixie disappeared from use. (1974)