Dry Frio Canyon

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Dry Frio Canyon, Uvalde County. Now settle in, because this one's got everything a good Texas story needs.

Families pushin' into new country, a discovery nobody saw comin', and a man with a nose for opportunity who knew how to turn a hole in the ground into a going concern. It starts in 1875, when the first settlers arrived. The Bohme family, the Jones family, Gus Heard, Lawrence Pike Heard, and their kin.

They came looking for new frontiers and range lands, and Dry Frio Canyon is what they found. They put down roots deep enough that when the first post office came along, they named it Heard. When the first school opened in 1880, they named that Heard too.

This was their country now, and they wanted the map to know it. But here's where the story takes a turn. In 1885, a man named T.

H. Hammer was digging a well. Just doing what a man does when he needs water.

And what he pulled up out of that earth wasn't just water. It was mineral water, and word spread fast about its medicinal qualities. Famous, the marker says.

That word carries weight out here. Now Hammer eventually sold his property to a promoter named Reagan, and Reagan, well, Reagan looked at that mineral water and saw something more than a curiosity. He built a bathhouse.

He built a hotel. He was going to sell that water, and sell it he did. One well, dug by one man, and suddenly Dry Frio Canyon had the makings of a destination.

The community kept growin' and settlin' into itself, and in 1906, the Baptist Church was formed, the first local house of worship. First settlers, first post office, first school, first well that changed everything, first church. Dry Frio Canyon built itself one first at a time, and the canyon's been holdin' those stories ever since.

What the marker says

Area's first settlers--families of Louis Bohme, Charles Jones, Gus Heard, and Lawrence Pike Heard-- applied in 1875 in search of new frontiers and range lands. The first post office was called Heard, as was the first school, which opened in 1880. While digging a well in 1885, T. H. Hammer discovered area's mineral water which became famous for medicinal qualities. He later sold his property to a promoter named Reagan who built a bathhouse and a hotel to sell mineral water. Baptist Church, formed in 1906, was first local house of worship. 1968