Cotulla Ranch

Joseph Cotulla reached Galveston in January 1857, about twelve years old, with his widowed mother and an aunt, Silesians from a part of the Prussian Empire now in Poland; his family's Prussian citizenship had been revoked in 1856. In the Civil War he served as a private in Company C of the First Texas Cavalry, the Union regiment of Texas Unionists, under Captain Adolph Zoeller, stationed in southern Louisiana in 1864. The ranch house is older than the family's ownership; they bought the land from Samuel Maverick around 1875 to 1877. The ranch is private.

What the plaque says

Cotulla Ranch Polish immigrant Joseph Cotulla (1844-1922) came to America in 1856, traveling with his family by ship and oxcart. He worked on area ranches and registered his own brand, the BAR JF, in 1863. Joseph enlisted in the First Texas Cavalry of the Union Army and served for two years during the Civil War. He drove cattle from the Nueces River to Kansas for several years. He started an area ranch with four other men in 1869 before establishing his own ranch in 1874. Cotulla continued to buy land and amassed more than 30,000 acres in La Salle, Dimmit and Webb counties. He donated 120 acres of the ranch to the railroad in 1881 to develop a townsite, which bears his name and became La Salle county seat. The original ranch land remains in the family today. (2009)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brush Country Museum — 1.9 mi
  La Salle County's local museum, with a segregated-schools display that sets the scene for the Welhausen School, where Lyndon Johnson taught Mexican American children in 1928-29.
• Chaparral Wildlife Management Area — 13 mi
  A 15,200-acre South Texas brush country research tract in La Salle and Dimmit counties, open to the public in spring and summer, with a short accessible trail and a long ranching past.

More markers nearby

• Capt. Jasper N. Daniel — 1.5 mi
• The Amanda Burks School — 1.6 mi
• The Nueces River — 1.8 mi
• The First United Methodist Church of Cotulla — 1.9 mi