Saffold Dam

The hydroelectric plant on the dam was the work of Max Starcke, the mayor for whom the surrounding park is named. Born in 1884 at York's Creek, now Zorn, he clerked for state senator Joseph B. Dibrell and organized the Farmer's State Bank in Seguin. As mayor from 1928 to 1938 he built the city's first water-filtration plant and a hydroelectric plant on the Guadalupe, and he helped organize the Texas League of Municipalities. In 1938 he became the first operations manager of the Lower Colorado River Authority and was its general manager from 1940 to 1955.

What the plaque says

Saffold Dam Named for William Saffold, who owned land here in the mid-1800s, Saffold Dam is typical of many mill dams built during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Originally a natural rock outcropping, the dam was first improved by Henry Troell in the late 1800s when he added rock to the dam to raise the water level to power a cotton gin. The city of Seguin bought Troell's property in 1907 to further develop the river's hydroelectricity, and subsequent improvements have led to the establishment of a hydroelectric plant on the dam's south side. (1991)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 14 mi
  The hilltop where Prince Carl of Solms-Braunfels raised the Adelsverein's headquarters in 1845, now the museum and archive of the German colony that became New Braunfels.
• Gruene Historic District — 15 mi
  A cotton town on the Guadalupe that the boll weevil emptied, rescued in the 1970s by a kayaking architecture student, with a dance hall that says it has never closed.
• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 24 mi
  The headsprings of the San Marcos River, among the longest-inhabited places in North America, once an amusement park with a swimming pig and now seen from glass-bottom boats.
• Natural Bridge Caverns — 25 mi
  The largest known cavern in Texas, found in 1960 by four college cavers under a ranch family's land, entered beneath a 60-foot limestone bridge and still growing.

More markers nearby

• The Guadalupe River — steps away
• Claiborne West — 0.8 mi
• Riverside Cemetery — 0.9 mi
• Second Baptist Church of Seguin — 0.9 mi