|
When McMullen County was officially established from parts of Bexar, Atascosa, and Live Oak counties in 1858, the area had only begun to be settled. In the years just prior to the Civil War settlers began to move into northern McMullen County, particularly along the Frio River; the area's grasslands and many wild cattle and mustangs offered economic opportunity for those willing to risk attack. In 1858 a group of about thirty people established a settlement where Leoncita Creek met the Frio. By fall of that year they had built eight to ten crude dwellings and soon afterward began to cut a road to meet the San Antonio-Laredo road that lay to the west. Dubbed Rio Frio, later Dog Town, and then Tilden, this was the first permanent settlement in the county. By 1860 there were perhaps 100 settlers in the county. Until about 1867 the settlers often found that there was a better market for mustangs than for wild cattle, but they also engaged in "cow hunts" to build herds and for sale along the Texas coast and, later, in Kansas. By the late 1860s and early 1870s a number of ranches had been established, mostly in the northern part of the county. During the early 1860s the settlement had grown slowly. In 1862 Levi J. Edwards built the town's first general store, and shortly after he added a saloon. About that time, too, the town built its first school. The settlement also acted as a home guard post for the Twenty-ninth Brigade of the Texas Confederate militia during the Civil War. After the war ended Dog Town grew fairly rapidly. By 1870 there were about 190 people living in the town, and by 1876 it included four general stores, one grocery store, two saloons, a drug store, and a hotel. In 1877, when McMullen County was officially organized, Dog Town was chosen as the county seat. That same year, the town was formally surveyed, and its name was changed to Tilden.
|
