Smithson Valley

Smithson Valley is fifteen miles northwest of New Braunfels in central Comal County. The Smithson Valley post office opened in 1857 in the home of Charles Ohlrich and was named for Ben Smithson, who settled in the area in 1856. A school was established in 1875. The town developed as a supply and social center and by the 1880s offered local farmers and ranchers a cotton gin, a store, an amusement hall, and a saloon. Cutting cedar posts became an important local industry. After 1940 the post office was closed, and the Smithson Valley school was consolidated with the Sherwood school. Since the 1930s the population of the town has been estimated at between fifteen and twenty. Even though the Texas Almanac still reported a population census number of fifteen in 2000, that figure belied the explosive growth in that region of rural Comal County. Numerous housing and commercial developments had begun by the early 1990s and reflected an influx of residents from the San Antonio area. Smithson Valley High School, part of the Comal Independent School District, opened in 1976. By 1988 a new campus opened for the high school, and the old site became the Smithson Valley Middle School. In 2007 the high school, which served a large rural and increasingly suburban area, had more than 2,500 students.