Johnson Fork Colony

Johnson Fork rises less than two miles north of Gobblers Knob in northwestern Kerr County and runs twenty-eight miles north-northwest to the Llano about four miles east of Junction. Its upper reaches are intermittent, but from West Spring it runs freely for its last twenty miles, and Roach Lake and Moody Lake are dammed along it. In the second half of the nineteenth century it was sometimes called Elm Creek. Wiles Joy's sixty-acre irrigated farm lay sixteen miles above its mouth, and Johnsongrass was planted along the stream in place of native grasses as better cattle feed.

What the plaque says

Johnson Fork Colony One of first settlements in Kimble County, founded early 1806's on land once owned by Samuel Maverick, famed pioneer Texas cattleman. Name of the colony was taken from its site on the Johnson Fork of the Llano River. Settled by Wiley Joy family, who built gravity irrigation system, rock fence, 2-room log house, traces of which still remain. By end of Civil War was home of 8 families, called the Joy settlement; it became a watering place for troops and travelers; later a stage stop. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kimble County Historical Museum — 13 mi
  A free county museum in Junction, the town at the meeting of the North and South Llano, with the papers, photographs and tools of a ranching county.
• Eckert James River Bat Cave Preserve — 23 mi
  A limestone cave on the James River where about four million Mexican free-tailed bats raise their young each summer, kept open to visitors by a family's gift.

More markers nearby

• Site of Creed Taylor Ranch Home — 9.5 mi
• Miller-Browning Colony — 9.9 mi
• Cloud Point — 9.9 mi
• The Oliver Pecan — 11 mi