Knickerbocker

The Handbook of Texas says the men who named Knickerbocker were related to Washington Irving, and that in its heyday the town ranked second only to San Angelo in size and influence in the county. The Baze brothers gave land for a church, a school and a cemetery. When falling wool prices broke the big sheep firm, Joseph Tweedy platted a townsite and formed the San Jose Irrigation and Power Company. In 1887 Stephen Dexter Arthur raised the area's first bale of cotton, and the Handbook places remains of his water-driven gin near the Dove Creek bridge.

What the plaque says

Attracted by irrigable land and the available water supply in Dove Creek, farmers, sheepmen, and cattlemen came to this area in the 1870s. First to arrive were the Baze brothers, who dug an irrigation ditch in 1875 to grow melons and hay for nearby Fort Concho. Others soon followed, including cattleman Joseph Schmidt, cotton farmer S. D. Arthur, and the Ryan, Martinez, Jaques, Villareal, Soto, Byler, Atkins, Beck, Duncan, Foster, and Etheridge families. In 1877 New Yorkers Morgan and Lawrence Grinnell, Joseph Tweedy, and J. B. Reynolds drove their sheep into the valley. They named their ranch headquarters after Washington Irving's character Diedrich Knickerbocker. The Knickerbocker Post Office was established in 1881. In 1889 the town was moved to a location just south of the original site in order to tap a new water supply. By 1890 the settlement had stores, hotels, saloons, blacksmith shops, two churches, and two schools. As was typical of many West Texas rural areas, Knickerbocker declined with the advent of the automobile and improved road systems. Farmers left to find work in San Angelo (18 mi. NE). The settlers of Knickerbocker, however, left a rich heritage. Many of their descendants still live in the area. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• San Angelo State Park — 15 mi
  A 7,677-acre park around O.C. Fisher Reservoir on the edge of San Angelo, where four Texas landscapes meet and the state's official longhorn herd grazes beside a bison paddock.
• Concho River Walk — 17 mi
  Four miles of lit trails along the North Concho through downtown San Angelo, rebuilt after voters taxed themselves in 2004, with gardens, sculpture, a river stage and stocked trout.
• Fort Concho National Historic Landmark — 17 mi
  The stone post at the forks of the Concho, headquarters of the Tenth Cavalry from 1875 to 1882, saved by a woman with a museum and now a city-run landmark of 23 original buildings.
• San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts — 17 mi
  A free art museum on the Concho beside Fort Concho, founded in the fort's 1868 quartermaster building and known nationally for its biennial ceramics competition.

More markers nearby

• Knickerbocker Schools — steps away
• Christoval — 9.1 mi
• Sherwood Courthouse — 10 mi
• Irion County — 11 mi