DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Way down in McMullen County, there's a bend in the land that carries a name — Yarbrough Bend — and that name goes all the way back to 1858, when a man named John Swanson Yarbrough came out here and put down roots as one of the original settlers. Now, they didn't name a place after you in those days unless you meant something to it, and Yarbrough clearly did.
But don't go thinkin' he was out here alone. Not a chance. Beside him stood a handful of others who were either brave enough or stubborn enough — maybe both — to carve a town out of this country: Dr.
George Dilworth, John Moore, James Tope, N.H. Walker, Joe Walker, and a man with a name that could've belonged to a founding father — Benjamin Franklin Winters. Seven men planting a flag in wild South Texas.
That takes a particular kind of nerve. What they built amounted to about thirty log picket houses. Thirty.
You could count 'em on your hands and a few toes. Small as it was, though, this little place had to hold its own against a roster of troubles that would make a lesser settlement fold up and blow away — Indian raids, cattle thieves movin' through the shadows, and wild animals that didn't much care who had a deed to the land. Harassed, the marker says.
Regularly. And yet the town stood, and the bend kept its name. Yarbrough Bend — 1858, McMullen County, Texas.
Thirty log houses against all of it. Sometimes that's exactly enough.
What the marker says
Founded 1858. Named for John Swanson Yarbrough, an original settler. Town contained about 30 log "picket houses". Settlers were often harassed by Indians, cattle thieves and wild animals. Other original settlers were: Dr. George Dilworth, John Moore, James Tope, N.H. Walker, Joe Walker and Benjamin Franklin Winters. 1968