Tehuacana

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, if you're rolling between Dallas and Houston and you blink, you might just miss Tehuacana — but don't you dare, because this little town sits at six hundred and sixty-one feet above sea level, one of the highest points on that whole stretch of Texas. That's not nothing.

That's a perch. The first time Tehuacana shows up in the written record, it's 1797, when Philip Nolan's trading expedition came through and took note of the place. Before that, of course, the land had its own story.

The Tehuacana Indians, a Wichita tribe, called it home. They were farmers. Peaceful people.

And that peace held — until the early 1830s, when the Cherokees destroyed them. That's the marker's word, and it deserves to sit there a moment. Destroyed.

A whole people. Gone. The land they left behind passed into other hands.

By 1835, a man named John Boyd had obtained a Mexican land grant on this very ground. And John Boyd, it turns out, was not a man content to sit still. He went on to serve in the First Congress of the Republic of Texas.

In 1847 he became Tehuacana's first postmaster. Then, in 1849, he looked around at this high, quiet country and thought — why not the capital of the State of Texas? He nominated Tehuacana for exactly that.

The election came in 1850. Austin won. Tehuacana did not become the capital.

But it did not give up either. Around that same era, a Presbyterian school called Tehuacana Academy took root right here — locally organized, locally supported. It ran for ten years.

The Civil War shut it down. But here's where the story gets interesting, because closed doesn't mean finished. That academy, with no small help from John Boyd himself, furnished the incentive for the founding of Trinity University in 1869.

Boyd donated one thousand five hundred and twenty acres of land for college use, and that gift includes the very campus still standing in Tehuacana today. Trinity operated there until 1902, when it moved on to San Antonio, where it remains. The school plant was then deeded to the Methodist Protestant Church, and they brought something new to the historic campus — Westminster College, one of the first junior colleges in the state of Texas, established in 1916.

Then in 1953, the Congregational Methodist Church bought the property, and they're the ones running Westminster College and Bible Institute on that same ground today. One piece of land. One man's gift.

A tribe's lost home, a failed capital bid, a closed academy, a born university, and a college that kept reinventing itself on the same patch of Texas dirt, six hundred and sixty-one feet above the rest of the road. Tehuacana's been easy to miss. But it's been impossible to stop.

What the marker says

Located at one of highest points (altitude 661 ft.) between Dallas and Houston. First noted in history by Philip Nolan's trading expedition, 1797. Home in early days of Tehuacana Indians, a Wichita tribe, who engaged in farming and peaceful pursuits until they were destroyed in early 1830s by Cherokees. Town is on Mexican land grant obtained 1835 by John Boyd, member First Congress Republic of Texas. In 1847 Boyd became first postmaster, and in 1849 nominated Tehuacana for capital of State of Texas. However, Austin won in election held in 1850. Tehuacana Academy, a Presbyterian school locally organized and supported, operated ten years. It was organized and supported, operated ten years. It was closed during Civil War, but furnished incentive (with help of Boyd) for founding in 1869 of Trinity University. Boyd's gift of 1,520 acres of land for college use includes present campus, where Trinity (now in San Antonio) operated until 1902. School plant was deeded to Methodist Protestant Church, which relocated here Westminster College, one of first junior colleges (1916) in Texas. The Congregational Methodist Church bought the property in 1953 and now operates Westminster College and Bible Institute on the historic campus.