Dr. Joseph McKeaig Pound

The Pound home is the oldest building still standing in Dripping Springs. It began as a dog-trot log cabin and was later enlarged for the doctor's practice, and it served the new community as a medical office and hospital and also as a church, a schoolhouse and a post office. Four generations of the family lived on the farmstead until 1983, and it was donated to the City of Dripping Springs in 1987. Restoration began in 1990, and the museum opened in 2003. The National Register listed the farmstead on July 28, 1995.

What the plaque says

Dr. Joseph McKeaig Pound (1826-1914) Born to Johnathan and Mary (Risley) Pound on October 26, 1826, near Louisville, Kentucky, Joseph Pound was a Mexican-American War veteran and early Dripping Springs doctor. The Pound family moved to Illinois in 1832. Joseph and his brother, Benjamin, enlisted as privates in the First Illinois Regiment during the Mexican-American War. From 1851-1853, he attended medical school in Kentucky. On December 13, 1853, in Mississippi, he married Sarah Dunbibben Ward. After the wedding, the couple joined Sarah's sister and brother-in-law, Indiana and John Moss, in moving to Texas. Both families settled in Hays County, but it was December 1854 before Dr. Pound could purchase 700 acres in the Philip A. Smith League next to the Mosses. Here he built a dog-trot style log cabin and worked primarily as a farmer and rancher. During the Civil War, Dr. Pound enlisted as a private but was discharged June 30, 1862. Between 1863-1864, he served as a surgeon for the Frontier Regiment at Camp Davis north of Kerrville under Major James Hunter. Now an established doctor, he traveled as far as Fredericksburg and Llano to visit the sick. His patients often boarded at the Pound home and paid through barter. Dr. Pound grew and sought out medicinal plants yet kept abreast of medical advancements. The Pounds had nine children: Indiana (1855-1939), Mary Elizabeth (1856-1933), Olive (1858-1861), Mittie (1861-1954), Louisiana (1864-1885), Charles (1866-1911), Georgia (1868-1968), Lovonia (1870-1944) and Jonathan (1872). They all are buried in Wallace Mountain Cemetery. (2023)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pedernales Falls State Park — 12 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.
• Barton Springs Pool — 19 mi
  A three-acre pool in the bed of Barton Creek, fed by the fourth-largest spring in Texas at 68 to 70 degrees, and shared with an endangered salamander found almost nowhere else.
• Mount Bonnell — 20 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.
• Lyndon B. Johnson National Historical Park — 20 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.

More markers nearby

• Dripping Springs United Methodist Church — 0.6 mi
• First Baptist Church of Dripping Springs — 0.8 mi
• Mt. Gainer — 5.1 mi
• Driftwood Cemetery — 6.1 mi