San Marcos Springs

From the springs the river runs about seventy-five miles southeast. The Blanco joins it four miles down, and the San Marcos then forms the boundary between Guadalupe and Caldwell counties and part of the line between Gonzales and Caldwell before meeting the Guadalupe two miles west of Gonzales. Not every explorer used the name: Teran de los Rios is thought to have called it the San Agustin in 1691, and the Marques de Aguayo called it Los Inocentes in 1719. Spanish explorers found Tonkawa people camping along its banks.

What the plaque says

San Marcos Springs Pouring forth millions of gallons of clear, icy water daily, these springs feed the san Marcos River and the 1,380-square-mile area which it drains. The immense springs rise at the Balcones Escarpment, a geologic fault line which slices across the state, separating upland from lowland Texas. The abundance of fresh water made these springs a mecca for the Indians who inhabited Central Texas and later for the European explorers and settlers who followed. The name San Marcos was first given to a Texas River by the Alonso de Leon Expedition on April 26, 1689 (Saint Mark's Day). The name was not applied to the present river, however, until 1709. Other explorers inspected this area and in 1755 it became a temporary site for several Spanish missions. Almost a century later, in 1845, pioneers William W. Moon and Mike Sessom made a permanent settlement here. In 1851 Gen. Edward Burleson, william Lindsey, and Eli t. Merriman bought the adjacent land and on it laid out the town of San Marcos. Attracted by the scenic beauty of the area, A. B. Rogers started a park here in 1926. Over the years it has been developed into "Aquarena Springs," one of Central Texas' most popular tourist attractions. (1971)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — steps away
  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.
• 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.
• Lockhart Courthouse Square — 15 mi
  A cotton-era courthouse town named the Barbecue Capital of Texas, built near the 1840 Plum Creek fight that followed the killing of Comanche leaders at peace talks.
• Sophienburg Museum and Archives — 18 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.

More markers nearby

• San Marcos Mill Tract — 0.4 mi
• Site of Hays County's First Public Building — 0.7 mi
• William W. Moon — 0.8 mi
• Founding of the First Methodist Church — 1.0 mi