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GUADALUPE RIVER. The Guadalupe River rises in two forks in western Kerr County. Its North Fork begins just south of State Highway 41, four miles from the Real-Kerr county line (at 30°06' N, 99°39' W), and runs east for twenty-two miles to its confluence with the South Fork, near Hunt (at 30°04' N, 99°20' W). The South Fork rises three miles southwest of the intersection of State Highway 39 and Farm Road 187 (at 29°56' N, 99°35' W) and runs northeast for twenty miles to meet the North Fork. After the two branches converge, the Guadalupe River proper flows southeast for 230 miles, passing through Kerr, Kendall, Comal, Guadalupe, Gonzales, DeWitt, and Victoria counties. It then forms the boundary between southern Victoria County and Calhoun County and between Calhoun and Refugio counties before reaching its mouth on San Antonio Bay (at 28°26' N, 96°48' W). The Guadalupe's principal tributaries are the Comal and the San Marcos rivers. Its drainage area is about 6,070 square miles. The upper Guadalupe flows across part of the Edwards Plateau.qv Near the river, high limestone bluffs support bald cypress, mesquite, and grasses. The Balcones fault line, which the river crosses near New Braunfels, marks the transition to the coastal plains. Sections of the upper and middle reaches of the river are suitable for canoeing, but a number of small waterfalls prevent uninterrupted navigation of the entire river. The lower Guadalupe is generally much quieter and has more sand bars that lend themselves to camping and day use.
The name Guadalupe, or Nuestra Señora de Guadalupe, has been applied to the present river, at least in its lower course, since 1689, when the stream was so named by Alonso De León.qv Domingo Terán de los Ríos,qv who maintained a colony on the river from 1691 to 1693, renamed it San Agustín, but the name Guadalupe continued to be used. Most of the early explorers, including Father Isidro Félix de Espinosa, Domingo Ramón, and the Marqués de Aguayo,qqv called the Guadalupe River the San Ybón above its junction with the Comal, and referred to the Comal River as the Guadalupe. Above the mouth of the Comal the name Guadalupe was applied to the present river at least as early as 1727, when Pedro de Rivera y Villalónqv so referred to it.
Artifacts dating from the Archaic era have been found in the Guadalupe River valley, suggesting that the area has supported human habitation for several thousand years. The peoples encountered by early explorers belonged to the Tonkawa, Waco, Lipan Apache, and Karankawa Indians. These early inhabitants were gradually displaced by settlers from Mexico, Europe, and the United States. European settlement along the Guadalupe began as early as the 1720s, when the Spanish established several missions above the site of present Victoria. In 1755 the short-lived San Xavier Mission was established near San Marcos Springs.qv For a brief time in 1808 a settlement grew up at the intersection of the Guadalupe River and the Old San Antonio Road,qv but flooding and the threat of Indian raids made the site untenable. Settlements of a more permanent nature along the Guadalupe were not long in coming, however. Martín De Leónqv established Victoria near the mouth of the river in 1824, and in 1825 James Kerrqv founded Gonzales sixty miles further upstream, where on the south bank a historic marker has been placed to commemorate the firing of the first shot for Texas independence in the battle of Gonzalesqv (October 2, 1835). During the 1830s some thirty or forty families homesteaded along the banks of the lower Guadalupe, which was an early boundary of the Power and Hewetson colony.qv Settlement farther upriver increased in the late 1830s. Seguin (then called Walnut Springs) was surveyed by Benjamin McCullochqv in 1839, and New Braunfels was founded in 1845 by a group of German settlers led by Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels.qv In 1856 Kerrville was established on the upper Guadalupe. The construction of railroads through the middle and upper Guadalupe valley in the 1880s brought large numbers of new residents to the area. Kerrville, Comfort, Luling, and Cuero were among the small communities on the Guadalupe that prospered with the arrival of the railroads.
Projects to make the Guadalupe navigable were approved by the Mexican government in the late 1820s and early 1830s, but these were interrupted by the Texas Revolution.qv Some improvements to the lower reaches of the river were authorized by the Republic of Texasqv in the 1840s and by the Texas legislature in the 1850s. Large snags in the Guadalupe above Victoria made travel upriver impossible, but commercial routes were developed from Victoria to ports on the Gulf of Mexico. River traffic declined after the completion of the San Antonio and Mexican Gulf Railway from Victoria to Port Lavaca in 1861. Interest in the river's potential navigability was renewed in the early 1900s, but a 1935 study by the United States Army Corps of Engineers pronounced such a project economically unfeasible. Instead, the corps proposed a canal paralleling the river to connect Victoria with the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway.qv The proposal was reviewed in 1950, and construction began soon thereafter. The thirty-five-mile Victoria Barge Canal was opened to commercial traffic in the mid-1960s, thus eliminating the need to improve the Guadalupe itself for such a purpose.
The steady flow from the springs that feed the Guadalupe and its tributaries have made the river an attractive source of waterpower. The Guadalupe Waterpower Company was established in 1912, and by 1920 the company had built a series of dams between New Braunfels and Seguin in an effort to harness the river's power. Flooding, however, continued to be a problem. In 1933 the state legislature established the Guadalupe-Blanco River Authorityqv to oversee the control, storage, and distribution of water from the Guadalupe and Blanco rivers. In 1958 the corps of engineers, in cooperation with the river authority, began construction of the dam at Canyon Lakeqv several miles upriver from New Braunfels. After its completion in 1964, the dam provided the first effective flood control for areas downstream. During the early 1990s the Guadalupe River continued to play a critical role in providing the surrounding area with power, water, and recreation. Kerrville, New Braunfels, San Marcos, Seguin, Gonzales, and Victoria, as well as smaller communities such as Prairie Lea and Fentress, relied on the river for their municipal water supply. At least six power stations in the middle and lower portions of the river depended on a steady release of water from Canyon Dam, and the construction of several more such stations was under consideration. Recreation on the river, which included canoeing and inner-tubing as well as water parks and the facilities available at Canyon Lake and Guadalupe River State Park,qv attracted large numbers of people to the vicinity and contributed heavily to the area's economy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: An Analysis of Texas Waterways (Austin: Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, 1974). Albert Terry Lowman, The Guadalupe-Blanco River Authority: A Study in the Politics of Watershed Development (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1963). Vertical Files, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin (Guadalupe River, Gulf Intracoastal Waterway). Water for Texas, Vol. 1: A Comprehensive Plan for the Future; Vol. 2: Technical Appendix (Austin: Texas Department of Water Resources, 1984).
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
LLANO RIVER. The Llano River rises in two spring-fed branches, the North and South Llano rivers. The North Llano rises in west central Sutton County (at 30°37' N, 100°26' W) and runs generally east for about forty miles to its confluence (at 30°30' N, 99°45' W) with the South Llano, just east of Junction in Kimble County. The South Llano rises in northwestern Edwards County (at 30°13' N, 100°29' W) and runs northeast for fifty-five miles to meet the North Llano. The Llano River proper flows east for about 100 miles, crossing Kimble, Mason, and Llano counties on its way to its mouth on the Colorado River, at Lake Lyndon B. Johnson near Kingsland (at 30°39' N, 98°26' W). Spanish explorers, such as Domingo Ramón in 1711, Pedro de Rábago y Terán in 1754, and José Maresqqv in 1787 and 1788, called the water course Río de los Chanes or Río de los Sanas, possibly after the Sana Indians, a Tonkawa tribe who lived in Central Texas. The name Llano, Spanish for "plain," came into use in the nineteenth century. Settlement of the Llano River valley began in the mid-to-late 1840s, when German Americans from Fredericksburg moved north. The communities of Castell, Hedwigs Hill, and Llano had been established by the mid-1850s, and the arrival of the railroad in the 1870s led to the flourishing of Kingsland and Junction. The Telegraph and Roosevelt communities, in the river's upper reaches, were not established until the 1880s, when the threat of Indian raids had been eliminated. In the early 1990s most of the land along the Llano River was undeveloped. The river runs through rolling terrain and over limestone formations characteristic of the Hill Country.qv The local soils, which are predominantly clay and sandy loams, support a variety of vegetation, including oak, juniper, pecan, mesquite, and grasses. The river has a constant flow and provides excellent opportunities for canoeing. The South Llano River State Parkqv offers camping and other recreation facilities.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Bexar Archives, Barker Texas History Center, University of Texas at Austin. Frederick Webb Hodge, ed., Handbook of American Indians North of Mexico (2 vols., Washington: GPO, 1907, 1910; rpt., New York: Pageant, 1959). Gilbert J. Jordan, Yesterday in the Texas Hill Country (College Station: Texas A&M University Press, 1979). Ann P. White, "The South Llano," Texas Parks and Wildlife, May 1990.
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DEVILS RIVER. Devils River, an intermittent stream, rises in southwestern Sutton County at the gathering of six watercourses, Dry Devils River, Granger Draw, House Draw, Jackson Draw, Flat Rock Draw, and Rough Canyon (at 30°20' N, 100°57' W) and runs southwest for ninety-four miles to its mouth on the northeastern shore of Amistad Reservoir in southern Val Verde County (at 29°28' N, 101°04' W). On its long route thirty-two tributaries disembogue into it, including Dolan Creek, where Dolan Falls is formed, Dark Canyon, Dead Mans Creek, and Satan Canyon. The path of Devils River sharply dissects massive limestone and traverses wash deposits of sand, gravel, and mud on flat terrain. The area's generally dark, calcareous, stony clays and clay loams support oak, juniper, grasses, mesquite, and water-tolerant hardwoods and conifers. In 1590 Gaspar Castaño de Sosa,qv a Spanish explorer, traveled along the river and called it Laxas, meaning "slack" or "feeble." Later travelers and settlers called the river San Pedro. In the 1840s Texas Ranger captain John Coffee (Jack) Haysqv asked the name of the river as he stood before one of its deep canyons. Upon hearing its name, he reportedly replied that it looked more like the Devil's river than Saint Peter's. The stream was well known to early travelers because it allowed access from north to south through rugged canyonland, and it offered water. East-west expeditions followed its banks as far as possible before striking out into the desert.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Del Weniger, The Explorers' Texas (Austin: Eakin Press, 1984).
COLORADO RIVER. The Colorado River, measured in length and drainage area, is the largest river wholly in Texas. (The Brazos drainage basin extends into New Mexico.) It rises in intermittent draws in northeastern Dawson County (at 32°41' N, 101°44' W), flows generally southeastward for 600 miles across Borden, Scurry, Mitchell, Coke, and Runnels counties, and forms all or parts of the county lines between Coleman and Concho, Coleman and McCulloch, Brown and McCulloch, Brown and San Saba, Mills and San Saba, Lampasas and San Saba, Burnet and San Saba, and Burnet and Llano counties, before it bends to the east across southern Burnet County and continues its southeastern course across Travis, Bastrop, Fayette, Colorado, Wharton, and Matagorda counties to its mouth, on Matagorda Bay (at 28°36' N, 95°59' W). Its drainage area is 39,900 square miles, and its runoff reaches a volume of more than 2 million acre-feet near the Gulf. The major towns along the stream are Austin, Lamesa, Colorado City, Robert Lee, Ballinger, Paint Rock, Marble Falls, Bastrop, Smithville, La Grange, Columbus, Wharton, Bay City, and Matagorda. Important reservoirs on the Colorado include Lake Colorado City, Lake J. B. Thomas, Buchanan Lake, Inks Lake, Lake Lyndon B. Johnson, Lake Travis, and Town Lakeqqv in Austin.
The Colorado River is probably the one called Kanahatino by Indians of the Caddoan linguistic family and Pashohono by some of the other Indian groups. It has also been identified as the stream that Juan Domínguez de Mendoza and Nicolás Lópezqqv called San Clemente in 1684, and as the one René Robert Cavalier, Sieur de La Salle,qv named La Sablonnière ("Sand-Pit") in 1687. The name Colorado, Spanish for "red," is evidently a misnomer, for the water of the stream is clear and always has been, according to the earliest records of historians. Most authorities agree, however, that the name Colorado was first applied by Alonso De Leónqv in 1690, not to the present stream but to the Brazos, and there is considerable evidence to support the theory that the names of the two streams were interchanged during the period of Spanish exploration. The present names, however, were well established before the end of Spanish Texas.qv Other historic associations along the Colorado include the river's use as a route inland by early colonists, including several of the Old Three Hundredqv who settled on its banks; the establishment of Austin as the seat of government in 1839; and the fact that in 1844, when both England and France were working to prevent the annexationqv of Texas by the United States, the British minister in Mexico secured a written avowal from Antonio López de Santa Annaqv to recognize the independence of Texas with the Colorado River as its boundary.
The river flows across the rolling prairie near San Saba County, enters the more rugged Hill Countryqv and the Llano basin, and passes through a series of canyons before it issues from the Balcones Escarpmentqv at Austin. Above Austin the lands along the Colorado are generally rough, but below Austin the river traverses the flat, alluvial bottoms of the Coastal Plain, an important agricultural area. Principal tributaries of the river include the Pedernales, Llano, San Saba, and Concho rivers and Pecan Bayou, the most westerly "bayou" in the nation. With the exception of the bayou, the tributaries flow into the river from the Edwards Plateauqv and are spring-fed. Although the Colorado has a relatively small annual run-off with relation to its watershed, it has presented some of the most serious drainage problems in Texas. Early in the nineteenth century its slow current caused the formation of a raft, or log jam, which gradually grew upstream so that the river was navigable in 1839 for only ten miles above its mouth. By 1858 the situation in Matagorda and Wharton counties had become so bad that the state appropriated funds for the construction of a new channel around the raft. The United States Army Corps of Engineers opened the channel in the mid-1800s, but since it was not maintained the raft filled it up. Teamsters unloaded vessels above the raft and carried the cargo to other teams that loaded it on other boats for shipment to Galveston and other Gulf ports. Shallow-draught vessels were at times able to ascend the Colorado to Austin.
After the Civil Warqv the Colorado ceased to be a factor in transportation. The delta that developed after removal of the log jam, beginning in 1925, reached across Matagorda Bay as far as Matagorda Peninsulaqqv by 1936; that year a channel was dredged through the new delta from the Gulf of Mexico to the town of Matagorda, thus forcing the river to deposit its flotsam and sediment directly into the Gulf. With removal of the raft, the community of Matagorda, formerly a major Texas seaport, gradually became landlocked. The present Caney Creek channel was the channel of the Colorado until about a thousand years ago, when the river cut into a wide estuary in the present Caney Creek area and redirected its flow to the west.
The need for a steady flow of water to irrigate rice farms in Wharton and Matagorda counties, combined with the necessity for flood-control measures, has presented more recent challenges. These have been met largely by the construction of Lake Travis and Lake Buchanan. Three smaller reservoirs in Burnet County-Inks, Johnson, and Marble Falls-produce power from water running over the Buchanan Dam spillway. The dam at Lake Austin, which is largely filled with silt, produces power from water flowing from the lakes above. Town Lake, a recreation site that divides north and south Austin, is the last impoundment in this section of the river; Town Lake and the lakes above Austin are known as the Highland Lakes. Conservation and use of the Colorado are overseen by three agencies established by the state legislature, the Lower, Central, and Upper Colorado River authorities,qqv and formerly the Colorado River Municipal Water District.qv
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Comer Clay, "The Colorado River Raft," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 52 (April 1949). James Cody, Rivers of Texas: The Colorado River (Los Cerrillos, New Mexico: San Marcos Press, 1974). Walter E. Long, Flood to Faucet (Austin: Steck, 1956). Matagorda County Historical Commission, Historic Matagorda County (3 vols., 1986-88). Byron D. Varner, Lakeway: The First Twenty-five Years and Earlier Times on the Colorado (Austin, 1988).
Comer Clay and Diana J. Kleiner
SAN MARCOS RIVER. The San Marcos River rises at Aquarena Springsqv in San Marcos, Hays County (at 29°56' N, 97°55' W). The Blanco River joins the San Marcos four miles downriver from the springs. The San Marcos flows southeast for seventy-five miles, forming the boundary between Guadalupe and Caldwell counties and part of the boundary between Gonzales and Caldwell counties, before reaching its mouth on the Guadalupe River, two miles west of Gonzales (at 29°29' N, 97°28' W). The history of the river's name is complicated. In 1689 members of Alonso De León'sqv expedition gave the name San Marcos to the first considerable river east of the Guadalupe, which scholars now believe to have been either the Colorado River or the Navidad River. Later Spanish explorers applied the name San Marcos to the first considerable river beyond the Guadalupe to the north and west-that is, to the present San Marcos River. Domingo Terán de los Ríos,qv however, is thought in 1691 to have called the San Marcos the San Agustín, and the Marqués de Aguayoqv in 1719 called it Los Inocentes. The name San Marcos was clearly the most common one applied to the river, however, being used by both Fray Isidro Félix de Espinosa and Fray Antonio de San Buenaventura Olivaresqv in 1709 and by Domingo Ramónqv in 1716. Archeologists have found evidence at the river associated with the Clovis culture, which suggests that the San Marcos River has been the site of human habitation for more than 10,000 years. When Spanish explorers began arriving in the area in the seventeenth century, they found Tonkawa Indians camping near the river. In 1808 the Spanish established a settlement of their own, called San Marcos de Neve,qv just downriver from the site of present San Marcos. The Spanish found the Tonkawa Indians in the area friendly, but frequent attacks by Comanche Indians forced them to abandon the San Marcos settlement in 1812.
Although much of the land in the area was included in grants made by the governments of Mexico and the Republic of Texas,qv settlement of the San Marcos valley was delayed until after the annexationqv of Texas to the United States. The present town of San Marcos was established in 1846. Prairie Lea, established in Caldwell County in 1848, was another early settlement on the San Marcos River. Edward C. Burlesonqv constructed the first dam on the San Marcos in 1849, in order to power a mill. Other communities built along the river included Martindale in 1855, Riverside (later Fentress) in 1870, and Luling in 1874. Rising as it does from springs fed by the Edwards Aquifer, the San Marcos River provides a reliable flow of water and would probably be the last river in the area to run dry in the case of a severe drought. It is not indestructible, however. It suffered greatly as a result of poor sewage control in the 1940s and 1950s, and for a time swimming in the river was declared unsafe. With the improvement of water treatment and sewage facilities, the river recovered much of its former clarity, although many people believe that its pristine quality is tarnished beyond repair. In addition to the threat of pollution, the river is endangered by increasing water demands and the potential depletion of the aquifer. Several plant and animal species, such as Texas wild riceqv and the Texas salamander, are unique to the San Marcos River, and if the springs feeding the river ever do run dry, these species will be lost forever. Although the San Marcos provides opportunities for recreation, public access to the river is limited to a few parks because most of the riverside property is privately owned. In addition to the facilities at Aquarena Springs, the river is accessible at a city park in San Marcos and at Palmetto State Parkqv near Luling.
BIBLIOGRAPHY: Leroy Williamson, "River on the Edge," Texas Parks and Wildlife, December 1990.
Vivian Elizabeth Smyrl
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