Old English-Crist House

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Out here in Bandera County, there's a cabin that's seen just about every kind of traveler Texas ever produced, and the story starts in 1878, when a man named J. W.

English bought this land. Now, English didn't throw up a house right away. He let a decade roll by, and then, about 1888, he built his cabin near a crossing of the Medina River.

A cabin near a river crossing. If you know anything about the way Texas worked back then, you already know what that means. Sooner or later, everybody comes to the crossing.

Wagon train pioneers, rolling through with everything they owned piled high and creaking. Charcoal haulers, dusty and road-worn, with a load that needed moving and a stomach that needed filling. And Texas Rangers, which is a name that in those days carried a whole weather system of meaning all by itself.

The English family took them all in. Shelter and food, the marker says, and in a country this big and this unforgiving, those two words are not small words. They are the difference.

Then, in 1906, the land and the cabin passed on. Sold to T. S.

Crist. New name on the deed, same tradition at the door. The Crist family kept it going, kept the welcome alive at that old river crossing.

So when you pass this place in Bandera County, understand what you're looking at. A cabin built about 1888 near the Medina River, where two families, English and Crist, made sure that nobody who came to the crossing had to leave hungry or without a roof over their head for the night. Some legacies are carved in stone.

This one was built in wood, and it's still standing.

What the marker says

Land here bought 1878 by J. W. English; this cabin built about 1888 near crossing of Medina Rivers; was sold 1906 to T.S. Crist. Families gave shelter and food to many travelers, including wagon train pioneer, charcoal haulers, and Texas Rangers. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1968.