Ratler, Texas and the Renfro Dam

Duane's take

Here's my telling of what the official marker says about Ratler, Texas and the Renfro Dam, out there in Mills County. Now, most towns out here in the Texas Hill Country got their start from somebody just stubbornly refusing to let the land beat them. This one started with a dam.

Sometime between 1876 and 1879, Mary Robins Jones and J. W. Jones built themselves a dam across the Colorado River, about eight miles south of where this marker stands.

They didn't reach for iron or concrete. They used what the land gave them: live oak logs and sandstone. And that dam held.

It held long enough to power Jones' grist mill and his cotton gin, and the community that gathered around all that useful industry became known as Jones Valley. Pretty soon, the grist mill wasn't just a mill. It was a trade center, the kind of place people made a reason to visit.

And that dam, the thing that started it all, became a favorite recreation spot for area settlers. People came to work, and then they came just to come. Then 1883 rolled around, and the Jones' properties were sold to a man named J.

D. Willis. Two years later, in 1885, Mills County was formed, and the U.S.

Postal Service set up a station right inside the Willis store. They renamed the town Ratler. Just like that, Jones Valley was gone from the map, and Ratler took its place.

Now, Ratler ticked along under Willis for quite a while. Then in 1933, Willis sold to B. F.

Renfro, and Renfro looked at that old dam of live oak logs and sandstone and decided it needed to be done right. He rebuilt it, all sandstone this time. And then came 1936.

The flood of 1936 destroyed everything. The mill, the gin, the trade center, whatever shape the old community had taken by then. Everything.

Everything but the dam. That sandstone dam B. F.

Renfro built was still standing when the water went back down. Same as it had been since the beginning, the dam outlasted everything else. Some things just refuse to go.

What the marker says

Mary (Robins) and J. W. Jones built a dam of live oak logs and sandstone on the Colorado River about 8 miles south of this site between 1876 and 1879. The dam provided power to Jones' grist mill and cotton gin. The community became known as Jones Valley. The grist mill became a trade center, the dam a favorite recreation spot for area settlers. In 1883 the Jones' properties were sold to J. D. Willis. When Mills County was formed in 1885, the U. S. Postal Service set up a station in the Willis store, renaming the town Ratler. In 1933 Willis sold to B. F. Renfro, who rebuilt the dam of sandstone. The 1936 flood destroyed everything but the dam. (1998)