Junction of Two Important Rivers, the Guadalupe and the Comal

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about this spot where two rivers come together. Now, some places earn their keep over centuries, and this junction of the Guadalupe and the Comal rivers is exactly that kind of place. It doesn't just have one story.

It has layers, each one stacked on top of the last like good sediment. Go back to May 8, 1718. Governor Martin de Alarcon stands at this very confluence and claims it, formally, for the King of Spain.

That's not a casual thing. That's a man planting a flag, speaking the words, making it official in the eyes of a crown that sits an ocean away. And once Spain had its claim on this junction, the site became a working stop, a throughway.

Priests and army units moved through here in their traffic to East Texas, and this spot on the water was part of that route. Then the world turns, as it does, and we find ourselves in 1845. A man named Adolph von Wedemeyer is runnin a ferry right here at this junction.

And what he's doing matters, because German immigrants are coming into Central Texas, and that ferry is part of how they get where they're going. You think about crossing unfamiliar country, arriving somewhere new, and there's a man with a boat who helps you across. That ferry was no small thing.

And the site keeps working. Come the 1860s, this same ground is home to a brick kiln and a tannery. Industry, right here at the water's edge.

Three eras, three purposes, one junction. The Guadalupe and the Comal just kept flowing, and people kept finding reasons to stop.

What the marker says

Site claimed May 8, 1718, for King of Spain by Gov. Martin de Alarcon, and used by priests and army units in traffic to East Texas. In 1845, ferry here, run by Adolph von Wedemeyer, aided German immigrants settling Central Texas. In 1860s this was site of brick kiln and tannery. (1968)