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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
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Cities |
Unincorporated areas |
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Bandera |
Bandera Falls |
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Pipe Creek |
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Census-designated
places |
Tarpley |
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Lakehills |
Vanderpool |
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Medina |
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ONLINE DATA |
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Mockingbird
State Bird
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