George Wilkins Kendall

Kendall came to be called the father of the Texas sheep business. In 1852 he and three friends put twenty-four Spanish merino rams and a flock of chaurro ewes on a ranch on the Nueces, with Joe Tait, a Scottish herder, as manager. He moved the flock near New Braunfels and then to the Post Oak Springs pasture near Boerne, and fought blizzards, grass fires and disease until it turned a profit in 1856. When scab struck in 1864, he was the first to build large vats and dip his 5,000 sheep.

What the plaque says

George Wilkins Kendall (August 22, 1809 - October 21, 1867) A native of New Hampshire, George Wilkins Kendall was a journalist by profession. He was co-founder of the New Orleans "Picayune" newspaper in 1837. Kendall later wrote books chronicling his experiences with the 1841 Texan Santa Fe Expedition and the Mexican War. He moved to this area in 1857 and became a sheep rancher. His promotional efforts led to growth and development of the county, which was named for him in 1862. Recorded - 1989

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Treue der Union Monument — 16 mi
  An 1866 German-language monument in Comfort over the graves of Hill Country Unionists killed at the Nueces in 1862, its flag of thirty-six stars kept at half-staff.
• Frontier Times Museum — 21 mi
  A museum built of fossils, petrified wood and cave formations in Bandera, holding a printer-historian's collection of frontier relics and oddities.
• Old Tunnel State Park — 21 mi
  A railroad tunnel abandoned in 1942 that now shelters up to three million Mexican free-tailed bats, who fly out each evening from May through October.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 25 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.

More markers nearby

• Boerne Cemetery — steps away
• Saint Helena's Episcopal Church — 0.5 mi
• German Music in Boerne — 0.7 mi
• Early Boerne Schoolhouses — 0.8 mi