DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll pass it along just the same. These hills you're rollin' through — Gillespie County — have seen just about every kind of traveler there is. Long before any deed was signed or any fence was strung, the trails of roving Indians crossed these very hills.
Then came the German pioneers, in 1846, setting down roots in land that was still very much being contested by history itself. And if that wasn't enough company, a group of Mormons came along and settled at a place called Zodiac in 1847. Zodiac.
Out here in the Texas Hill Country. You can't make that up, and the marker sure doesn't try to. Now, the county itself was created on February 23, 1848, and organized not long after, on June 5 of that same year.
And then there's the name — Gillespie. It belongs to Richard Addison Gillespie, a man who came to Texas in 1837 and made himself a defender of the Texas frontier. He rose to captain in the Mexican War, and on September 22, 1846 — the same year those German pioneers were first breaking ground in these very hills — he fell at Monterrey.
The county seat is Fredericksburg, sitting right at the heart of it all. So next time you pass through, remember — this ground has been crossed, contested, settled, mourned over, and named for a man who gave everything. That's Gillespie County.
What the marker says
The trails of roving Indians crossed these hills settled by German pioneers in 1846. A group of Mormons settled at Zodiac in 1847. Created February 23, 1848. Organized June 5, 1848. Named for Richard Addison Gillespie, a Texan from 1837, a defender of the Texas frontier, and captain in the Mexican War who fell at Monterrey, September 22, 1846. Fredericksburg, the county seat.