Tehuacana

Tehuacana, also known as Tehuacana Settlement, was a frontier community on Tehuacana Creek three miles west of Farm Road 462 in north central Frio County. The original settlers arrived from Hondo Canyon in Bandera County around 1870 and included the Adcocks, the Wisdoms, John Jay and Elizabeth Kilgore, and stockmen John Rowland, Perry Wilson, Levi Wilson, Albert Warren Austin, Josiah Foster, and their families. A schoolhouse, which also served as the community center and church, was constructed in 1872, and soon thereafter a music room was added by Perry Wilson. Around 1873 several deaths in the community were attributed to smallpox believed to have been introduced by a visiting schoolgirl. A Methodist Episcopal church was established in the home of Perry and Levi Wilson in 1875, and in the early 1880s a gristmill and blacksmith shop were opened in the community. Around 1884 at least eight people were killed by a second severe smallpox epidemic referred to as the Plague and believed to have been introduced by the church pastor after a visit to San Antonio. Local tradition suggests that the second smallpox epidemic led to the abandonment of the community. The Tehuacana cemetery was still shown on the 1989 county highway map.