Inventory of the county archives of Texas : Uvalde County, no. 232 Page: 5
viii, 143 p. : map, plans ; 28 cm.View a full description of this book.
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5Historical
Sketch (First entry, p. 37)
Arnett, who had a contract to furnish the troops with hay for their horses,
pitched his tent near Fort.Inge on February 10, 1852, he found five
families living near the fort: those of Cave Nelson, Clem Howard, Westfall
Tom Rife, Sam Everett, and HIenry Levering. Big Foot Wallace carried the
mail from San Antonio to El Paso, changing mounts at Fort Inge.27
The troops and early settlers found the location ideal. Wood and
stone were' abundant. Lumber could be had from Bastrop at $75 to $80 per
thousand, while a mill on the Frio produced ".indifferent hard timber" at
$30 per thousand. The Leona furnished a good supply of clear water, and
fuel wood was available at $1.50 a cord. Beef was plentiful at 7 cents
a pound delivered to the post. The Overland Southern Mail crossed the
river near the fort, and wagon trains transported freight at 85 cents per
hundred. 28
On February 8, 1850, Uvalde County was created out of territory of
Bexar County, The boundaries were:
Beginning at the junction of the Rio Frio, and Leona river:
thence up the Rio Frio, to the southwestern corner of Medina
county; thence north'with the western boundary line of
Medina county, thirty-six miles to its northwestern corner;
thence west to the Nueces river; thence down the river Nueces
to the crossing of the upper Presidio del Rio Grande road;
thence in a direct line to the place of beginning.29
The new county was to be. called Uvalde for the Canyon of Uvalde.30
The act of creation provided further. that an election should be held at
once by the chief justice of Bexar;31 but, there were too few settlers in
the region, and organization of the county was not effected until nearly
6 years later,
By 1853 two settlements had been made on the Sabinal River, On
August 17, 1852, Capt. William Ware, a Kentuckian who commanded a company
at San Jacinto, drove his herd of 600 cattle into the Sabinal valley near
present-day Utopia and pitched his tent on the site which later was to be
his home, He instructed John, his l3-year-old son, to plant a peach tree,
declaring when the boy had finished, that the first fruit tree had been
planted between D-'anis and the Rio Grande 32
27. W. W. Arnett, Reminiscences with Genealogical Notes on the Arnett
Family (ms, in The University of Texas Library).
28. 32d Cong., 1st sess., Sen. Ex. Doc. 1, Report of Lt. J. M. Barton,
acting assistant quartermaster, p. 278.
29. Gamin Laws, III, 570.
30. Fulmore, Histor and Geography, p, 27,
31. GCam, Laws, III, 570.
32. Aileen Fenley, "John C. Ware, Uva-lde County's Oldest Settler,"
Frontier Times, VIII (May 1931), 345-348,
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Historical Records Survey. Texas. Inventory of the county archives of Texas : Uvalde County, no. 232, book, May 1941; (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth25256/m1/16/: accessed May 3, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Special Collections.