DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about Frio County, so take it straight from the record. Now, if you want to talk about old country — country that was old before most of Texas even knew it existed — you pull over and you listen to this one. The Spanish were poking around this very stretch of land in 1690.
Sixteen ninety. Let that settle in for a moment. The rest of Texas was still largely a rumor to European mapmakers, and yet right here, explorers were already leaving bootprints in the caliche.
Frio County itself didn't get the paperwork until 1858, when it was created, and then it sat and waited a spell before getting organized in 1871. That same year, they laid out a county seat and called it Frio City. Fresh town, fresh start, seat of justice — the whole promise of it.
But Frio City had a rival comin', and it rode in on iron rails. When the International and Great Northern Railroad came through, a place called Pearsall was suddenly the place to be, and in 1883, Frio City surrendered the county seat title to Pearsall, just like that. Progress doesn't ask permission.
Now here's the part that makes an old-timer smile. That rock courthouse from the Frio City days? Still standing.
You can go see it right now in what's called Frio Town — the present version of that original settlement — just sitting there in stone, outlasting every ambition that built it. The county has had four courthouses in all: two frame ones, one of rock, and one of brick. Each one a chapter.
Each one a little more permanent than the last. In 1876, the frontier was still a dangerous proposition in these parts. Indian attacks were a real and present threat to settlers, and so a Texas Ranger camp was established right here, on Elm Creek, under the command of the noted Major John B.
Jones. The Rangers set up that camp to stand between the settlers and the danger, and the name of Major Jones carried weight — the kind of weight that made people sleep a little easier on the frontier. And then there's the legend himself.
W.A.A. Wallace — Big Foot Wallace, they called him, born in 1817 — spent his last years right here in Frio County. He passed in 1899.
The legendary frontiersman, a man whose name had become the stuff of campfire stories long before he was finished living them, chose this stretch of Texas to finish out his days. The man who was already a tall tale in his own lifetime, here, in this country the Spanish had found two centuries before. Frio County.
Explored first, settled hard, and home, in the end, to one of the biggest names the frontier ever produced.
What the marker says
Lying in one of the first areas in Texas to be explored by the Spanish, in 1690, Frio County was created in 1858 and organized in 1871. Frio City, laid out 1871, was the first county seat, but surrendered the title to Pearsall, on the International & Great Northern Railroad, in 1883. Old rock courthouse still stands in present Frio Town. The county has had four courthouses: two frame ones, one of rock, and one of brick. In 1876 a Texas Ranger camp, under the noted Major John B. Jones, was set up on Elm Creek to protect settlers from Indian attacks. The legendary frontiersman W.A.A. "Big Foot" Wallace (1817-1899) spent his last years in Frio County. (1968)