The Amanda Burks School

In the spring of 1871 Amanda Burks went up the trail with her husband William's herd to Abilene, Kansas, and she is considered the first woman to travel with a trail drive. The Texas Trail of Fame calls her the Queen of the Old Trail Drivers. The couple founded La Mota Ranch near Cotulla in 1876, one of more than twenty-five ranches started in the county in the 1870s. After William died in 1877 she kept trading cattle for about fifty more years, the long career that gave the school her name.

What the plaque says

The Amanda Burks School Amanda (Nite) Burks (1841-1931) and her husband William Franklin Burks (d. 1877) moved their ranching operation to present-day La Salle County in 1876. After her husband's death, Amanda continued to run the ranch for over fifty years. Like many early residents of the area, Amanda believed in the importance of education. A frame building served the educational needs of Cotulla soon after the town was founded in 1882. A two-story brick structure was built in 1909. It was renamed in honor of Amanda Burks shortly before her death in 1931. A new Amanda Burks School was built in 1953. (1982)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brush Country Museum — 0.3 mi
  La Salle County's local museum, with a segregated-schools display that sets the scene for the Welhausen School, where Lyndon Johnson taught Mexican American children in 1928-29.
• Chaparral Wildlife Management Area — 14 mi
  A 15,200-acre South Texas brush country research tract in La Salle and Dimmit counties, open to the public in spring and summer, with a short accessible trail and a long ranching past.

More markers nearby

• The First United Methodist Church of Cotulla — 0.2 mi
• La Salle County — 0.3 mi
• First Presbyterian Church of Cotulla — 0.3 mi
• Cotulla's First School — 0.3 mi