DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker says about James Polk Johnson, out there in Blanco County. Now, some men plant a seed and live to see the tree. James Polk Johnson was not that kind of man.
But the tree grew anyway. He came into this world on August 24, 1845, in Georgia. Not Texas — Georgia.
But Texas had a way of pulling people toward it, and before long the Johnson family made the move. Young James grew up in DeWitt County, and when the Civil War came, he served in the Confederate army. When that was done, he didn't go back east.
He went west. Blanco County, to be exact, where his uncles were already knee-deep in the cattle business. Now here's where things start getting interesting.
He joined his uncles. Learned the operation. And then in 1871, he bought the business outright and made a go of it on his own.
Successful, the marker says — and in the cattle country of the Texas Hill Country, that word doesn't come cheap. But cattle wasn't the whole of his ambition. In 1879, James Polk Johnson founded a new town on the Pedernales River.
He called it Johnson City. And from the moment it existed, he had a vision for it — he wanted Johnson City to be the county seat of Blanco County. He worked toward that.
He was instrumental, the record says, in the town's very development. But here's the thing about James Polk Johnson and his dream. October 20, 1885 — that's when he died.
And Johnson City was not yet the county seat. Not yet. Six years passed.
Six years after his death, in 1891, Johnson City finally became the seat of Blanco County. The dream he'd worked for, the thing he'd poured himself into, landed — just not while he was around to see it. Some men plant a seed.
James Polk Johnson planted a whole town, and the harvest came in 1891. He just had to trust the ground.
What the marker says
(August 24, 1845-October 20, 1885) A native of Georgia, James Polk Johnson came to Texas with his family and grew up in DeWitt County. Following his service in the Confederate army during the Civil War, he moved to Blanco County to join his uncles in the cattle business. He bought the business in 1871 and became successful in his own right. In 1879 he founded a new town, Johnson City, on the Pedernales River and was instrumental in its development. His dream of making Johnson City the seat of Blanco County was not realized until 1891, six years after his death. (1989)