Site of Town of Strickling

Martha Webster was about four when her family's party was attacked, and only she, her mother and her brother survived to be taken captive. Her mother twice escaped with her; the second time, on March 15, 1840, just before the Council House Fight, they walked about twelve days toward San Antonio, her mother carrying her much of the way, until Mexican oxcart drivers found them near the city. Her brother was freed in the prisoner exchange. Widowed in 1865, she married a former Union soldier, Charles Simmons, in 1868, and she died in California in 1927 at ninety-one.

What the plaque says

Site of Town of Strickling Once a busy rural community. Named for Mrs. Martha (Webster) Strickling, who settled here in 1853 with husband Marmaduke. As child, she survived killing of some 30 settlers in infamous Webster Massacre near Leander, and months of Indian captivity. Post office opened here, 1857, and Strickling became a mail terminal and stage stop. Tons of lumber and buffalo hides were hauled through here. The town had a school, churches, a doctor's office, and stores. Strickling gradually declined when bypassed by the railroad, 1882. Only the cemetery remains. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 15 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Balcones Canyonlands National Wildlife Refuge: Doeskin Ranch — 15 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.
• Inks Lake State Park — 18 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.
• Longhorn Cavern State Park — 19 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.

More markers nearby

• Black's Fort — 1.2 mi
• Shady Grove Community — 2.1 mi
• Bethel Cemetery — 4.0 mi
• Joppa Community — 4.2 mi