Little remains today of the once-thriving Camp Ranch community in Wilson County, other than memories and a cemetery.

 

And now a Texas Historical Marker.

 

Members of the Wilson County Historical Society gathered in the Evergreen Cemetery near F.M. 1344 and C.R. 132 west of Floresville May 18 for a marker dedication ceremony, honoring the historical significance of the small German settlement.

 

In 1731, the meadowland west of the San Antonio River was owned by Mission San Francisco de la Espada, with the ranch headquarters being Rancho de las Cabras. In 1874, John F. Camp purchased and began developing the prairie ranch land. By 1904, "Camp's Ranch," having grown to approximately 10,000 acres, was sold to land developers S.V. Houston, H.S. Tom, and William Green. They divided the ranch into smaller tracts, selling these for small farming or ranching operations.

 

To the area, 20 families — mostly of German descent — came to settle; the community of Camp Ranch started developing.

 

The landowners built a dance platform, started the Evergreen Shooting Club, built a one-room schoolhouse, cleared land for a baseball field, and established the Evergreen Cemetery. They helped each other build homes. The pioneer spirit prevailed.

 

Most activity in Camp Ranch was located near the intersection of F.M. 1344 and C.R. 132 (Old Campbellton Road), where the cemetery remains.

 

The one-room Green School, named after William Green, who donated the land, was a couple hundred yards north of the cemetery. Cora Lyons was its first teacher. In 1929, it was replaced by the two-room Camp Ranch School, named in honor of the original landowner, John Camp. It served students through eighth grade. Teachers through the years included Evelyn Boening, Helen Fisbeck, and Alyce Maeckel, as well as Martha Bartek, Laura Atkins, Agnes Steinberg, Hattie Fuller, Myrtle O'Neill, Robert Schlortt, Allen Herring, Elsie Morgenroth, and Hattie Barnes.

 

The school served many purposes, from dances to Camp Ranch family get-togethers, and beef club meat distribution in the days before refrigeration.

 

On C.R. 132 in 1913, Charley Boening opened a filling station, garage, general repair shop, and grocery store, called Camp Ranch Inn. The baseball field was across the road from the Evergreen Cemetery and a shooting range was down F.M. 1344, a dirt road at that time. The shooting range was behind the dance platform; a dance hall replaced the platform in 1911.

 

Today, there is little evidence of what was once the thriving Camp Ranch community. The school was torn down in the 1950s and the children then attended school in Floresville. After S.H. 97 from Floresville was completed in the 1940s, Charley Boening's businesses moved near the new paved highway. The Camp Ranch Dance Hall closed after a fatal stabbing, and was later torn down. The baseball field is now overgrown. The shooting club was dissolved. The only evidence of Camp Ranch's existence is the Evergreen Cemetery, which is still in use.

 

The residents of Camp Ranch joined together with a pioneer spirit to lend a helping hand to build homes, businesses, a community school, dance hall, baseball field, shooting range, and local cemetery. This spirit bound the community for all to prosper and makes the Camp Ranch community a historical landmark of German heritage in Wilson County.

 

Camp Ranch families

 

Some of the families who settled in Camp Ranch included:

 

Albert

Boening

Cleveland

Coldewey

Frank

Gunther

Haverlah

Key

Klein

Pfeil

Pundt

Striebeck

Zook.

 

Many of the original landowners' families still own land here.

The Green School Thanksgiving Play .... would be considered insensitive nowaday. The date is not given for the photograph yet in those days it was natural for a Cowboy & Indian portrayal.

 

  Green School was a one room schoolhouse that was located on Farm Road 1344, which is west of Floresville in the Camp Ranch community. It started out as a one-room schoolhouse. Martha Bartek was one of the first teachers. Theo Boenning told me more about the school than anyone else when I talked to him one time. They first built it on a sandy hill, but when the wind blew it was so much sand, the kids could not go out for recess. So they moved down the hill close to road. 

    When it was time for "books", the teacher would always come out and ring and bell and they knew it was time for "books". Recess was over! He loved recess, but he really loved learning too.

    His fondest memories of the school were the plays they used to have there. He called them "talent plays", and they would give them the booklets and give them parts and characters to play, and they would have to memorize the parts.

    Then the teachers would advertise about the play and when they put the play on, the school house would be packed full of people. It would be on a night, and they would light the schoolhouse with gasoline lamps, something called an Aladdin Lamp. It had two little wicks to light and put out a pretty good light. You had to pump a little air in them once in awhile for it to work.  He said they always enjoyed the practicing as much as going on the night they put the play on! The name of one play was "The Absent Minded Professor." Theo had a part in that play and he said he still remembered some of his lines.

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COURTESY/ Lois Wauson