Camp Fawcett

The camp sits in the canyon of the upper Nueces, which rises in two forks in Edwards and Real counties. The East Prong and Hackberry Creek join to form part of the Real-Edwards county line, and the river runs on through a canyon the Handbook of Texas calls one of remarkable beauty, alongside Ranch Road 335. From there it travels 315 miles to Nueces Bay. Alonso De Leon named it the Rio de las Nueces in 1689 for the pecans on its banks; a 1527 map had already shown it as the Rio Escondido, the hidden river.

What the plaque says

Camp Fawcett Opened 1928. named for E.K. Fawcett, President, Southwest Texas council, Boy Scouts of America. That area--Dimmit, Edwards, Kinney, Maverick, Real, Uvalde, Val Verde, and Zavala counties -- merged in 1943 with the Concho Valley Council. Main Hall is named for 1930 camping chairman, V.A. Brown. (1967) Marker to be dedicated October 1, 1967

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Real County Historical Museum — 17 mi
  A small county museum in Leakey, at the head of the Frio Canyon, with a log-cabin parlor, an 1880s horse-drawn hearse, a wool and mohair shearing machine and 1910s jail cells.
• Garner State Park — 20 mi
  The Frio River park that Uvalde County built with the Civilian Conservation Corps and named for its own vice president, where people have danced on the stone pavilion every summer since the 1940s.
• Devil's Sinkhole State Natural Area — 22 mi
  A 140-foot shaft into a cavern outside Rocksprings, seen only on guided tours from a platform at the rim as some three million bats spiral out on summer evenings.
• Kickapoo Cavern State Park — 26 mi
  A lightly developed former ranch on the Kinney-Edwards line with twenty caves, a Saturday tour into a 1,400-foot cavern and a summer bat flight from Stuart Bat Cave.

More markers nearby

• The Pioneer Coalsons — 0.8 mi
• Site of Nix Mill — 0.8 mi
• Dixie Settlement — 0.8 mi
• Site of the Mission San Lorenzo de La Santa Cruz — 4.3 mi