County History

Smyrl, Vivian Elizabeth Vivian Elizabeth. “Kendall County.” Texas State Historical Association Handbook of Texas, 1952, https://doi.org/ Updated September 29, 2020

https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/kendall-county

KENDALL COUNTY. Kendall County is in south central Texas, 170 miles inland from the Gulf of Mexico, and is bordered by Gillespie, Blanco, Comal, Bexar, Bandera, and Kerr counties. Boerne, the county seat, is on Cibolo Creek, thirty miles northwest of San Antonio. The county’s center lies eleven miles north of Boerne at 29°57′ north latitude and 98°43′ west longitude. Kendall County comprises roughly 663 square miles of rolling to hilly terrain in the Edwards Plateau region, with elevations ranging from 1,000 to 2,000 feet above sea level. Vegetation native to the alkaline soils of the region consists primarily of tall grasses, live oak, juniper, and mesquite. Most of the area is drained by the Guadalupe River, which crosses the county from west to east. Two other important water courses rise in Kendall County: the Blanco River in the north and Cibolo Creek in the south. Wildlife in the area includes deer, javelina, coyote, bobcat, beaver, badger, fox, raccoon, weasel, squirrel, and a variety of small birds, fish, and reptiles. Among the county’s mineral resources are dolomite and limestone. The climate is subtropical subhumid with an average minimum temperature of 35° F in January and an average high of 94° in July. The growing season averages 231 days annually, and the rainfall averages thirty-two inches.

The Central Texas region, including Kendall County, has supported human habitation for several thousand years. Archeological evidence suggests that hunting and gathering peoples established themselves in the area as early as 10,000 years ago. Lipan Apaches, Kiowas, and Comanches became the dominant tribes in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries and were present when Germans began arriving in the 1840s. The Meusebach-Comanche Treaty, signed in 1847, was to permit the settlers to enter Indian territory to settle and the Indians to enter the settlements. German immigrants established Sisterdale in 1847, Tusculum (Boerne) in 1849, Curry’s Creek in 1850, and Comfort in 1854. 

Most of the Kendall County area was part of the Bexar County established by the Republic of Texas in 1836; it later became part of Kerr County, which was separated from Bexar in 1856. Comfort served as county seat of Kerr County for two years before Kendall County was formed. In 1859 residents of Boerne and Sisterdale petitioned the legislature for a new county; the legislature granted the petition in 1862, and the new county, carved from Kerr and Blanco counties, was named in honor of George Wilkins Kendall. The first Kendall County officials were elected later that year, and Boerne was chosen as the county seat. The earliest schools in the area were private institutions that met in someone’s home or in donated space. The first public schools were organized at Comfort in 1856 and at Boerne in 1857. Although the legislature had authorized a district system in 1854, the system was not put into effect before the 1870s or 1880s. Shortly after 1900 Kendall County had twenty-two common school districts. It was not until the 1930s and 1940s that improved transportation made large-scale consolidation of schools into independent school districts possible. Until the mid-twentieth century extensive schooling was for many children a luxury that took second place to their duties on the family farm, and drop-out rates were high. As late as 1940 less than 9 percent of the population over the age of twenty-five had completed high school. The percentage of residents who finished school began to rise as the job market in nearby San Antonio expanded. By 1960, 20 percent were high school graduates, and by 1980 the number represented nearly 65 percent of the population over twenty-five. Religious development in the county was fairly slow. Many of the early German immigrants were “freethinkers” and were not particularly receptive to organized religion. In the 1840s and 1850s a priest from the cathedral in San Antonio traveled to the area occasionally to provide services to those people who wanted them. A priest was assigned to Boerne in 1860, but because of local sentiment, built his church on a hill outside the town. As more people moved into the area, however, more churches were established. A Methodist congregation was organized in the mid-1870s, an Episcopal church in 1881, and a Lutheran church in 1891. In the early 1980s the county’s fifteen churches had an estimated combined membership of 5,514; Catholic, Southern Baptist, and American Lutheran were the largest denominations.

The major issue at the time of the county’s formation was the Civil War. Kerr County, which in 1861 encompassed Kendall County, passed the ordinance of secession by a vote of 76 to 57; however, the majority of voters in Kerr County’s Precinct 2, the area which became Kendall County, opposed secession 53 to 34. The level of Unionist sentiment in the region was due in large part to the number of German immigrants, most of whom opposed both slavery and secession. A group of German Unionists from Kendall County fought a Confederate force at the battle of the Nueces; the Union sympathizers who were killed at the Nueces were buried in a common grave at Comfort after the war, and the Treue der Union monument was erected in their honor in 1866. County residents supported Edmund J. Davis by a greater than two-to-one margin in his 1869 gubernatorial campaign, and by nearly three to one in his unsuccessful bid for reelection in 1873. In presidential politics county voters preferred Republican candidates in all but two elections between 1872 and 1992, the exceptions being Teddy Roosevelt, who headed the progressive Bull Moose party in 1912, and Democrat Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1932.

Like most areas in the South, Kendall County suffered considerable economic hardship immediately following the Civil War and throughout the Reconstruction period. Between 1864 and 1866 the county as a whole experienced a 52 percent loss in property tax receipts. Because few residents had practiced slavery, only 15 percent of this property loss was in slaves; most of the loss came from declines in total farm acreage, farm value, and livestock value, each of which fell 20 to 30 percent. The county began to show signs of recovery by 1880. The overall population rose from 1,536 in 1870 to 2,763 in 1880, and the 1880 census reported 419 farms in the county, up from 197 ten years earlier. The amount of improved land rose from 3,617 acres in 1870 to 22,452 acres in 1880. Field crops such as corn, wheat, oats, and cotton took up a third of the improved land, while livestock dominated the rest. Sheep ranching, which had been introduced to the area by George W. Kendall in the 1850s, had become the county’s principal industry. The 1870 census reported the county as having 4,293 sheep and producing 8,781 pounds of wool; in 1880 the county’s 16,259 sheep produced more than 65,200 pounds of wool. The completion to San Antonio of the Galveston, Harrisburg and San Antonio Railway in 1877 made outside markets more accessible to Kendall County residents, and freight services thrived, hauling local farm produce, wool, and lumber. Transportation became easier still in 1887, when the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railway reached Boerne. In 1914 the San Antonio, Fredericksburg and Northern Railway connected Fredericksburg with the San Antonio and Aransas Pass track just east of Comfort. The Welfare, Waring, and Bankersmith communities developed as a result of the railroad construction, and established towns such as Boerne and Comfort thrived on the increased economic activity. By 1900 the population of the county had increased to 4,103, and the ethnic makeup was changing. In 1870 25 percent of the population were native Germans, 3 percent were from other European countries, 6½ percent were Black, and 2 percent were native Mexicans. The remaining 63 percent were either native to Texas or had come from other states. New immigrants arrived from England in the 1880s and 1890s and from Mexico shortly after the turn of the century. By the 1930s Mexican Americans represented more than 11 percent of the county’s population. The number of Blacks increased more slowly, from 101 in 1870 to 253 in 1910, but decreased steadily as a percentage of the total population. In the 1910s and 1920s, as urban environments outside the county began to offer greater opportunities for advancement, Kendall County’s Black population was drawn away, falling to twenty-four by 1980. In the early 1980s 40 percent of the county’s 10,635 residents were of German descent, 25 percent were English, 20 percent were Irish, 13 percent were Hispanic, and less than ¼ percent were Black.

In 1900 Kendall County had 542 farms, and the amount of land in farms had more than doubled, rising from 153,921 acres in 1880 to 339,653 in 1900; the average farm size had increased from 367 to 626 acres. Stockraising was still the principal industry. By 1900 the county had nearly 20,000 cattle and 8,600 sheep. The wool and mohair industry had also been introduced to the area, and although the county had only 2,048 goats in 1900, their numbers increased rapidly; by 1920 the county had 13,626 goats. The planting of field crops also became a popular venture. From the 1880s through the mid-1920s the cotton industry commanded several thousand acres a year and kept a number of cotton gins in business. By the 1920s, however, corn and oats had eclipsed cotton, proving to be more profitable for an economy that was based on livestock. Some of the corn and oats were used locally as feed, and the rest was put on the San Antonio market. Kendall County had almost completely abandoned the cotton industry by the mid-1920s. The Great Depression of the 1930s reinforced the shift away from cotton and brought an increase in farm tenancy. From the 1880s through 1930 tenants had represented less than a fifth of the county’s farmers. Between 1930 and 1940, however, the number of farms run by tenants rose from 130 to 171, or nearly one quarter of the county’s farms. Many businesses in Boerne were forced to close, and a number of residents had to leave to look for work. The population of Kendall County as a whole showed a net increase of only 110 residents during these years, rising to 5,080 by 1940.

American involvement in World War II brought new industries to neighboring Bexar County. The presence of several large military bases in the San Antonio area meant an increased demand for civilian support services. Many Kendall County residents joined the military or took advantage of the availability of nearby jobs. Rail service to Fredericksburg had been discontinued in the early 1940s and the equipment given over to the war effort, but the county’s rail link with San Antonio remained. In the 1950s many aspects of life in Kendall County settled back into the accustomed routine. Wool and mohair production remained high, with 414,160 pounds and 197,171 pounds, respectively, being marketed. The average farm size rose to 562 acres, as many smaller tenant farms were absorbed by larger ranching operations. One important difference in post-war Kendall County was a shift in the urban/rural balance of the population. Before 1940 residents of Boerne and Comfort made up less than 40 percent of the county’s total population; the majority of residents lived in small rural communities or on farms. In the 1950s the ratio began to change, and by 1960 nearly 60 percent of the county’s 5,889 residents lived in either Boerne or Comfort.

The rapid growth of Kendall County in 1970s and 1980s was prompted by the 1960s development of northwestern Bexar County. The newly completed Interstate Highway 10 lessened the need for rail service, and the Southern Pacific abandoned the remaining track in the county in 1970. The interstate also provided area residents a more convenient means of commuting than did the old U.S. Highway 87. As more people moved to Kendall County, several residential developments and subdivisions were built in the southern half of the county, accommodating the larger population without being a strain on the limits of Boerne proper. The county had 10,635 residents in 1980, a 52 percent increase over the 1970 population of 6,964; the population in 1990 was 14,589. Boerne itself grew from 2,400 residents in 1970 to 4,867 in 1990. In the early 1980s 86 percent of county land was in farms and ranches, but only 5 percent of that land was under cultivation. Hay, oats, wheat, and sorghum were the primary crops, accounting for 90 percent of the 12,000 acres harvested; other crops included peaches and pecans. More than 90 percent of agricultural receipts came from livestock and livestock products, the most important ones being cattle, milk, sheep, wool, angora goats, mohair, and hogs. Agricultural products accounted for 10 to 15 percent of the county’s annual income in the 1980s; the rest came from industries, tourism, and support services. Professional and related services, manufacturing, wholesale and retail trade, and construction work involved 57 percent of the labor force; 15 percent of the work force was self-employed, and 48 percent were employed outside the county. Industries with the highest employment were agribusiness and heavy construction.

Kendall County is almost unique among Texas counties in that its voters have almost always supported Republican candidates for the presidency. In 1872 (the first year the county participated in a national election), Republican Ulysses S. Grant carried the area; and thereafter, the Republican candidates easily took most of the county’s votes in almost every presidential election from 1876 to 2004. The only exceptions occurred in 1892, when Republican Benjamin Harrison won only a plurality of the county’s votes; in 1912, when Democrat Woodrow Wilson won a plurality there because many of the area’s Republicans voted for the third-party Progressive candidate, Theodore Roosevelt; and in 1932, during the depths of the Great Depression, when Democrat Franklin Roosevelt carried the county.

The U.S. census counted 38,880 people living in Kendall County in 2014. About 75.2 percent were Anglo and 21.7 percent were Hispanic. Of residents age twenty-five and older, 85 percent had completed high school, and 31 percent had college degrees. In the early twenty-first century tourism, agriculture, and a few manufacturing concerns were important elements of the local economy. In 2002 the county had 967 farms and ranches covering 326,926 acres, 78 percent of which were devoted to pasture, 13 percent to crops, and 8 percent to woodlands. That year farmers and ranchers in the area earned $7,023,000; livestock sales accounted for $6,052,000 of the total. Cattle, sheep, meat goats, Angora goats, hay, and small grains were the chief agricultural products.

Boerne (population, 12,314) is the county’s seat of government and its largest town; other communities include Comfort (2,537), Kendalia (149), Waring (73), and Sisterdale (110). Kendall County retains much of its German heritage, reflected in the surnames of many of its residents, as well as in the atmosphere of its communities. Residents enjoy celebrating their local history, holding the annual Abendskanzart summer evening concert series, the Berges Fest in June, and the Kendall County Fair on Labor Day weekend. These events, in addition to the Guadalupe River State Park, attracted many visitors to the area and provided the county with significant tourist trade.