Dixie Settlement

Lewis Barksdale patented a league and a labor of land here in 1847 and moved onto it in 1869, after settlers had begun arriving in the 1860s. By 1880 Dixie had a saloon, a hotel and a small store, and the post office application of 1882 failed on the name because another Texas community already held Dixie. Twenty people lived in Barksdale in 1884. School met in a small house until a schoolhouse went up in 1887, and that building served as the church as well. The town counted 106 residents by 1900.

What the plaque says

Dixie Settlement (Forerunner of Barksdale) Named for Camp Dixie, a Texas Ranger post near Military Road to Fort Inge (42 mi. SE). First civilian settler was Jerusha Sanchez, midwife for Nueces Canyon area, widowed by Indians in the 1870s. Next came Elizabeth Hill, whose eldest son Jim was a military scout. Lewis Barksdale, a veteran of Republic of Texas wars, opened a ranch on his 1876 land grant. The J. R. (Bob) Sweeten family established a store that became the focus for the expanding community. When a post office was created in 1882 and named for Lewis Barksdale, the name Dixie disappeared from use. (1974)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Real County Historical Museum — 16 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 — 19 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 — 23 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

• Site of Nix Mill — steps away
• The Pioneer Coalsons — steps away
• Camp Fawcett — 0.8 mi
• Site of the Mission San Lorenzo de La Santa Cruz — 3.5 mi