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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
| Cities |
Unincorporated areas |
| Bandera |
Bandera Falls |
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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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Updates:
Dec 2011: Obit - ELLIS; Census - 1880 Special Circumstances |
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