MARKING THE SPOT
SHARING THE PAST
The Kendall County Historical Commission recently unveiled two Texas Historical Commission (THC) markers: the first on April 26 honored Kendall County’s three early rock jails, and the second, on May 31, celebrated the circuit riding Methodist minister and early Kendall County resident, the Rev. Andrew Jackson Potter.
While each dedication memorialized diverse topics, they were united in time; both were rooted in the 1870s-1880s window of Kendall County’s heritage.
Constructed in 1870, the first of Kendall County’s three early jails was embedded in the northeast corner of our historic Kendall County Courthouse. And just one year later, in 1871, Potter moved his wife, Emily, and growing family from a parcel of land near Comfort to a 308-acre plot of land three miles northwest of Boerne.
From his “mountain home” he continued his assignment of riding the Kerrville Circuit and taking the Methodist faith into the far flung “frontier region” that sprawled into west Texas and the rugged Rio Grande border region.
As Kendall County Courthouse activity continued to grow, mirroring the rise in the county’s population, in 1876 the Kendall County Commissioners decided to jettison the embedded jail, and build a small, dedicated facility, which finally housed inmates in late 1878.
During the years of residence in Kendall County, Potter is found in a number of mentions in the Kendall County Commissioners Court minutes. His property is a reference point on the petition for building the Upper Cibolo Creek Road and Fredericksburg Road in 1874, 1879 and 1884 commission minutes.
Potter signed bonds for various public officials, including one for $5,000 on Dec. 7,1880, for Kendall County Treasurer Dr. Jacob S. West. A testimonial to Potter’s life and character was authored in a May 9, 1881, letter to Boerne’s Union Land Register by Dr. West.
The second jail in 1878 had its fair share of problems, starting with a jail break that was profiled in the Dec. 19, 1878, Galveston Daily News: “Boerne’s poet, a jail bird, Smith by name, escaped from the Kendall jail last week, but was retaken in Kerr and returned to his former quarters.”
On June 26, 1883, County Judge P.D. Saner, County Commissioner Fritz Hofheinz and West toured the jail and, in West’s write-up, he concluded, “I find the jail unsafe, unhealthy and desperately filthy.”
In 1883 Potter moved to San Angelo, closing his Kendall County chapter.
The completion of a new two-story jail emerged from August 1887 Kendall County Commission minutes, and it was a keeper.
Replaced in 1986, this jail served Kendall County for 99 years and continues its service as our Old Jail Museum.
Meanwhile, the Rev. Potter continued preaching, dying in the pulpit on Oct. 1, 1895. Potter’s name appears in church histories and on Texas Historical Markers at numerous Texas Methodist churches including Copperas Cove, San Angelo, Junction, Utopia, Prairie Lea, Bandera, Kerrville and Rio Frio.
The Texas Historical Commission markers honor the legacies of two Kendall County icons — one of stone, and one of character.
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