Blanco County Trail Drives

From this headquarters site in the 1870s, the brothers J. T. and Sam Ealy Johnson started thousands of cattle up trails to Kansas and other shipping or market points. To the west, at Williamson's Creek, and at Deer Creek (southeast) the Johnsons had gathering and processing pens. They had largest individual trail driving outfit in Blanco and six nearby counties, sending north several herds of 2,500 to 3,000 each season. Sam Ealy, the younger Johnson brother, is known to history as grandfather of 36th president of the United States, Lyndon Baines Johnson. (1969)