Site of Prairie Point Community

The ranches around Prairie Point were part of a county-wide change. Burnet County had just under 5,800 sheep in 1870 and nearly 25,000 by 1880, when it produced almost 90,000 pounds of wool. By 1890 it counted more than 40,000 cattle, 15,000 pigs and nearly 59,000 sheep, and farm values had doubled. The population, 6,855 in 1880, rose to 10,747 in 1890 as people came from other states and from England, Scotland, Germany, Sweden and Mexico. The number of farms went from 281 in 1870 to 951 in 1880.

What the plaque says

Site of Prairie Point Community Anglo settlement of this part of Burnet County began in the 1850s. By the 1870s settlers had established cattle and sheep ranches as well as a number of family farms. A community school opened in 1882 and remained in operation until 1921. The Prairie Point Missionary Baptist Church was organized in 1883 and met in the schoolhouse until it burned in 1890. The congregation worshipped in a brush arbor until a new school was erected, then met at the school until 1906, when a new sanctuary was built. The church eventually was disbanded in 1957. (1993)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge: Doeskin Ranch — 10 mi
  A free federal refuge north of Lake Travis kept for two songbirds that need old juniper and oak, with trails at the Doeskin Ranch unit near Bertram.
• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 22 mi
  A cave carved by an underground river in the Hill Country, cleared of mud by hand in the 1930s and reached down 52 stone steps on a guided tour.
• Inks Lake State Park — 22 mi
  A state park on a constant-level lake of the Colorado, between Buchanan and Inks dams, with pink granite and gneiss at the water and CCC work along Park Road 4.
• Inks Dam National Fish Hatchery — 23 mi
  A free federal hatchery below Inks Dam on the Colorado, with thirty production ponds that draw birds and a look at how fish are raised from egg to harvest.

More markers nearby

• Bertram School — 3.6 mi
• The Village of South Gabriel — 3.6 mi
• Bertram — 4.2 mi
• Mahomet Cemetery — 5.8 mi