Bullis

Bullis was on the Southern Pacific Railroad five miles southeast of Holman Ranch, Texas, in southeastern Val Verde County. It was founded in 1882 as a siding and nonagency railroad station. Prehistoric people lived around the site 6,000 years ago and left art and belongings in caves and rockshelters. A settlement called Seminole was inhabited by Seminole Indians at the site of the station before the advent of the railroad. In the 1870s a battle occurred between Black Seminole scouts under the command of United States army lieutenant John Lapham Bullis and a band of hostile Indians near the site where the station was later built. Bullis and fewer than fifty scouts defended the southern Texas border west of Fort Clark against Indian attack from 1869 to 1882. When the railroad tracks reached Val Verde County, Lieutenant Bullis was honored by having a station named for him. The Bullis station was abandoned by the railroad after 1944, and the small community vanished.