Huebner-Onion Homestead and Stagecoach Stop

The homestead now lies within Leon Valley, a city that did not exist when the Huebners arrived. The community developed in the 1950s and incorporated in 1952 to head off annexation by San Antonio. It had 536 residents in 1960, 1,960 in 1970 and 9,581 by 1990, and it counted 11,542 in 2020, governed under a council-manager system with its own police, fire department and library. Its historical society, begun in the 1970s, worked to preserve the homestead, which Joseph Huebner, an Austrian native, had founded on 800 acres in 1858.

What the plaque says

Huebner-Onion Homestead and Stagecoach Stop This site was home to two important area families, as well as a stagecoach stop in the 1800s. Development here began in 1858 when Joseph Huebner and his family, who arrived from Austria five years earlier, bought acreage surrounding what is now Huebner Creek and Huebner Road. A successful San Antonio businessman, he soon erected three limestone buildings here and began to acquire herds of horses, mules and cattle. He also opened a stagecoach stop at the family's homestead ranch on the San Antonio to Bandera Stage Line Route. The stop included blacksmith services, change of stock and overnight accommodations if travelers were unable to pass over the flooded creek. Joseph Huebner died in 1882 and was buried on the homestead property. After Huebner's death, and well into the early 20th century, the family continued to operate the ranch, watering hole and livery service on this land. In 1930, Judge John F. Onion and his wife Harriet acquired a section of the Huebner property that included the homestead site. John (d. 1955) began a family legal tradition, working as a lawyer and later serving as a San Antonio municipal judge, Bexar County Justice of the Peace and Bexar County District Judge. Harriet (d. 1983) was a schoolteacher in Leon Valley. Due to metropolitan growth, the homestead was in danger of disappearing, but grassroots efforts led by the historical society of Leon Valley, along with corporate donations and the purchase of land, helped save this historic property. Today, it serves as a natural area and educational site. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spanish Governor's Palace — 8.6 mi
  The last visible piece of the Presidio San Antonio de Béxar: a presidio captain's house with a 1749 keystone, a century as shops and saloons, and a romantic 1930 restoration.
• Casa Navarro State Historic Site — 8.6 mi
  The adobe and caliche-block home of José Antonio Navarro, a native-born signer of the 1836 declaration, and the last remnant of the Tejano neighborhood called Laredito.
• San Fernando Cathedral — 8.7 mi
  The Canary Islanders' parish church on Main Plaza, where Bowie married and Santa Anna raised a red flag, rebuilt in Gothic Revival around the walls of the 1750s church.
• The Alamo — 9.1 mi
  Mission San Antonio de Valero before it was a fort: a church its builders never finished, a thirteen-day siege in 1836, and the Army gable of 1850-52 that became its emblem.

More markers nearby

• Evers Family Cemetery — 0.5 mi
• Texas' First All-Spanish Radio Program — 4.3 mi
• Zion Lutheran Church and Cemetery — 5.1 mi
• Lockhill School — 5.2 mi