Real County

Real County covers 622 square miles of the Balcones Escarpment, where the Edwards Plateau breaks into sharply cut canyons. Its streams rise from perennial springs in the Edwards and Glen Rose limestones and descend over beds of limestone and gravel. The headwaters of both the Frio and the Nueces lie in the county, and the Nueces forms its western line with Edwards County. Elevations run from 1,500 feet in the valleys to 2,400 at the plateau's edge, and the western ridges along the Nueces Canyon are steeper and rougher than those of the Frio Canyon.

What the plaque says

Real County The location of Real County lies at the southern edge of the Edwards Plateau along the Balcones Escarpment, an area of rugged mountains and canyons named for the Frio, Sabinal and Nueces rivers. The county line between Edwards County and Bandera County ran directly through the center of a settlement in the Frio Canyon later called Leakey. When Edwards County organized in 1883, Leakey was elected as the county seat. Eight years later, however, the county seat was moved to Rocksprings, forcing the citizens of Leakey to travel great distances over mountains, canyons and rivers to file official documents. In 1895, the citizens of the Frio Canyon petitioned the Texas Legislature to organize a county to be called Bulah from parts of Uvalde, Bandera and Edwards counties but the petition was rejected. In 1913, a bill was introduced to create a new county from parts of Edwards, Kerr and Bandera counties to be called Murphy. The bill passed on April 3, 1913 with an amendment to name the county for rancher and Texas state senator Julius Real. The first election was held on July 26, 1913 to elect county officers and the location of the county seat. After a disputed election, Leakey was declared the county seat and in 1918 a limestone courthouse including a jail was erected. Pioneers subsisted on farming and ranching, and Real County remained primarily rural until the highway system emerged in the 1930s. Now commemorating the centennial of its creation, Real County boasts an economy largely based on tourism, wild game hunting and businesses which support these industries. (2013)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Real County Historical Museum — steps away
  A small county museum in Leakey, at the head of the Frio Canyon, with a log-cabin parlor, an 1880s horse-drawn hearse, a wool and mohair shearing machine and 1910s jail cells.
• Garner State Park — 8.9 mi
  The Frio River park that Uvalde County built with the Civilian Conservation Corps and named for its own vice president, where people have danced on the stone pavilion every summer since the 1940s.
• Devil's Sinkhole State Natural Area — 33 mi
  A 140-foot shaft into a cavern outside Rocksprings, seen only on guided tours from a platform at the rim as some three million bats spiral out on summer evenings.

More markers nearby

• Real County — steps away
• John Leakey — steps away
• Leakey Cemetery — steps away
• Catherine McLauren — steps away