DUANE
Duane's take
The official marker for the Town of D'Hanis — Old D'Hanis, as folks know it now — here's how the State of Texas recorded it, and here's how I'll tell it. Some towns earn their names. Some towns earn them twice.
The place now called Old D'Hanis sits in Medina County, and its story begins in 1847 — twenty-nine families, all of them arriving together, all of them planting something new in Texas soil. Leading that band of settlers was a man named Theodore Gentilz, and he wasn't working alone. He was representing Henri Castro — born 1781, died 1861 — a man the marker calls a distinguished pioneer and colonizer of Texas, the very man credited with introducing the early settlers of Medina County.
Castro was the kind of figure who shapes a place from a distance, the organizing force behind the whole endeavor. Now the town those twenty-nine families built got its name from Guillaume D'Hanis — William, if you prefer the English of it — the manager of the colonization society. You don't get a town named after you without doing something worth remembering, and apparently managing that society was exactly that.
For a while, things held together just fine out there on the Texas plain. Then came the Southern Pacific Railroad — and it missed. Missed the town entirely.
And when a railroad misses you in those days, well, the town doesn't wait around feeling sorry for itself. The citizens of D'Hanis picked up and moved to where the present D'Hanis stands today. So the original settlement kept its identity the only way it could — by becoming Old D'Hanis.
A town that moved on, and a name that stayed put.
What the marker says
Now Known as Old D'Hanis. Established in 1847 by 29 families under the leadership of Theodore Gentilz, representing Henri Castro (1781...1861), distinguished pioneer and colonizer of Texas who introduced the early settlers of Medina County. Named in honor of Guillaume (William) D'Hanis, manager of the colonization society. When the Southern Pacific Railroad missed the town, its citizens moved to the present D'Hanis. Erected by The State of Texas 1936