La Vernia

W. R. Wiseman of Mississippi, who organized a Presbyterian church here around 1851, is said to have named the place Live Oak Grove. The Brahan Masonic lodge was organized in 1859. German and Polish immigrants brought the population to 110 by 1885, when there were three churches, a steam gristmill and a cotton gin, and H. Suhre kept the general store. The San Antonio and Gulf Railroad arrived in 1893, and by 1915 La Vernia had two gins, a bank, four churches, a pottery plant, a brick works and 500 residents. It incorporated around 1980.

What the plaque says

La Vernia Established about 1846 or 1847 by Claiborne Rector, who built a stage stop and blacksmith shop here to serve travelers on the Chihuahua Road, a major trail in early Texas. Main Street today follows route of the old road. Settlement was called "Post Oak" until mail service started, 1856. Name was then changed to Spanish "La Verdear" because of many green oaks in area. English speakers called it "La Vernia". Like much of Texas, this area was settled by southerners in search of fertile land. In Civil War, La Vernia was a recruiting and officer training center. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Mission Espada and the Espada Aqueduct — 20 mi
  The southernmost San Antonio mission and the oldest Spanish aqueduct in the United States, still carrying river water over Sixmile Creek to the fields after nearly three centuries.
• Mission San Juan — 21 mi
  The mission near the river bend where the San Antonio got its name in 1691, with an unfinished church foundation and farm fields still watered by an eighteenth-century acequia.
• San Antonio Missions National Historical Park — 22 mi
  Four working parish churches on the Mission Trail south of downtown, with the visitor center at Mission San Jose, the Queen of the Missions, and the descendants who still worship there.
• Mission Concepción — 23 mi
  A stone church dedicated in 1755 that has never fallen into ruin, its convento ceilings still painted, and the ground where the Texas Revolution's fight for San Antonio began.

More markers nearby

• Immanuel Lutheran Church — 0.3 mi
• Concrete Cemetery — 2.0 mi
• Claiborne Rector — 2.1 mi
• Pat Higgins Grass Farms — 6.1 mi