| In
February 1855 sixteen Polish families arrived in Bandera to work
in James and DeMontel's sawmill, and in August of the same year
August Klappenbach opened the first store and post office. On
January 25, 1856, the legislature marked off Bandera County from
portions of Bexar County; the new county was formally organized on
March 10, 1856. |
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Because of its distance from the battlefields
and the fact that there were so few slaves in the county, Bandera
County was spared much of the trauma of the war and
Reconstruction. The population continued to grow slowly, and by
1870 the number of residents in the county was still only 649,
most of whom lived in or near the settlement of Bandera. The
decade of the 1870s, however, brought signs that Bandera County
was slowly losing its frontier character. Indian attacks became
less and less frequent, new stores opened, and stone increasingly
replaced cedar logs as a building material.. |
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| The
lack of good roads, however, kept the county relatively isolated.
Because of the county's hilly terrain, the railroads bypassed it
to the north or south, and ranchers were forced to use the arduous
overland road to ship their products to market in San Antonio.
Despite the relative hardships, numerous new settlers arrived
during the 1870s. In 1880 the population had grown to 2,158, and
by 1890 the number of residents stood at 3,795. As before, the
great majority of new settlers came from the South, though recent
immigrants, especially Germans, formed an increasingly larger
portion of the county's residents. |
Cities and towns
| Cities |
Unincorporated
areas |
| Bandera |
Bandera
Falls |
|
Pipe
Creek |
| Census-designated
places |
Tarpley |
| Lakehills |
Vanderpool |
| Medina |
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ONLINE
DATA |
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Mockingbird
State Bird
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