The Rock Spring

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, straight from the stone in Edwards County. Now, the name Rock Spring, it doesn't take a detective to figure that one out. Early Texans knew this place by what it did: pushed water, one inch of it, right out of solid rock.

That's not a river, not a creek, not a thundering falls. One inch. But out here in the Edwards County hill country, one inch of steady, faithful water out of the ground was about as valuable a thing as a man could stumble across on a long, hot haul.

And stumble across it they did. Travelers came. Freighters with their heavy loads came.

This spot became a camp, a stopping place, a reason to pull the wagon over and breathe. Then folks started sticking around a little longer. W.

J. Greer set up a sheep camp here in 1882. Francis Winans followed in 1884 with a cattle and sheep ranch.

A. O. Burr arrived around 1885 and started farming.

The cattlemen came through too. Frank Gray among them, camping at the spring during roundups, the way cattlemen did when the land was still being sorted out by muscle and rope. Now, here's where the story gets a little shadowy.

Because not everyone who found their way to that rock spring was there for the ranching. Out in the 1880s, a hut nearby became a frequent stop for outlaws. The marker doesn't say which outlaws, doesn't say what they did; just that they frequented that hut.

Which means this little spring, this one-inch trickle out of the rocks, was drawing in just about everybody. The righteous and the otherwise. Then 1891 rolls around, a townsite gets platted, laid out right at the center of Edwards County, designed from the start to be a county seat.

The Rocksprings Post Office opened that same year, 1891, and a town took root where travelers once just stopped to water their horses. And that spring? It's still there.

Still seeping. Right in a city and county historic park and playground. One inch of water out of rocks, and it built a whole county seat around itself.

Not bad for a trickle.

What the marker says

Known to early Texans as one inch flow of water out of rocks. Site of a camp for travelers and freighters. Occupants of land around the spring included W. J. Greer, with a sheep camp, 1882; Francis Winans, with a cattle and sheep ranch, 1884; A. O. Burr, farming, about 1885. Cattlemen, including Frank Gray, camped here during roundups. Outlaws in 1880s frequented a hut nearby. Rocksprings Post Office opened 1891 in townsite platted for a new county seat at center of Edwards County. The rock spring still seeps in city and county historic park and playground. (1972)