Thompson's Islands

The mill race at Thompson's Islands was dug by enslaved people. The 1860 slave schedule lists William A. Thompson as holding 25 people, and a San Marcos writer, citing a 1994 Texas Parks and Wildlife account and a family history, says the ditch and wasteway were dug by hand. That account names Joe Cephas, an enslaved blacksmith bought at a New Orleans auction for $800 who helped build the water wheel, and the Brady family, enslaved by the Thompsons in 1860, among them Steven Brady and the sons Tom, Alonzo, Freeman and Walt. Their labor made the islands.

What the plaque says

Thompson's Islands William A. Thompson brought his family and slaves to Texas from Louisiana in 1850. They established plantations in Caldwell and Hays counties. With slave labor, the family built a mill on the San Marcos River near this site. Construction and operation of the mill resulted in the creation of three land masses in the river channel which became known as Thompson's Islands. The land remained in the family for generations, and the mill, which provided power for local lumber operations and a cotton gin, became an important element in the area's economy. (1993)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Spring Lake and the Meadows Center — 1.6 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.
• Gruene Historic District — 14 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 — 17 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

• Thompson's Island Homeplace — steps away
• La Sociedad Mutualista Cuauhtémoc — 0.7 mi
• Wesley Chapel A. M. E. Church — 1.1 mi
• Eddie Durham — 1.1 mi