Blanco County Trail Drives

The ranching beneath the drives lasted. Cattle in Blanco County nearly tripled to more than 31,000 by 1880 and held there through 1900, while sheep recovered from the wartime losses to 19,000 by 1880 and 30,000 by 1890. Angora goats were first counted in 1900, and in 1929 ranchers sheared almost 274,000 pounds of mohair. Cotton, first ginned in the county in 1870, covered 16,000 acres by 1910, and by 1929 more than 20,000 peach and pecan trees were being harvested.

What the plaque says

Blanco County Trail Drives From this headquarters site in the 1870s, the brothers J. T. and Sam Ealy Johnson started thousands of cattle up trails to Kansas and other shipping or market points. To the west, at Williamson's Creek, and at Deer Creek (southeast) the Johnsons had gathering and processing pens. They had largest individual trail driving outfit in Blanco and six nearby counties, sending north several herds of 2,500 to 3,000 each season. Sam Ealy, the younger Johnson brother, is known to history as grandfather of 36th president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park — 0.4 mi
  The Johnson City district of the national park: the Victorian house where Lyndon Johnson grew up, and the stone barns his grandfather built in the Johnson Settlement.
• Pedernales Falls State Park — 11 mi
  The Pedernales stepping down over layered limestone east of Johnson City, a river that can turn from a placid stream to a torrent in minutes.
• Lyndon B. Johnson State Park and Historic Site — 13 mi
  A state park on the Pedernales opposite the LBJ Ranch, with a working Texas-German farm kept as it was around the First World War and the permit desk for the ranch tour.
• Luckenbach — 21 mi
  A store, saloon and dance hall on Grape Creek that a humorist bought in 1971, declared a free state of mind, and turned into a pilgrimage for Texas music.

More markers nearby

• James Polk Johnson — steps away
• James Polk Johnson Building — 0.4 mi
• Dr. James Odiorne — 0.4 mi
• Blanco County — 0.4 mi