Santiago Del Valle Grant
T
R A V I S C O U N T Y |
Marker Text: McKinney Falls State Park lies in the center of an early Texas land grant that originally fell within the Empresario contract of Texian hero Ben Milam. Ten leagues of land were transferred in 1832 to Santiago Del Valle. Who at that time was secretary of the Mexican government of Coahuila Y Texas and had previously served as a member of the Mexican congress.
In 1935 Del Valle sold nine leagues of his land to Michel Menard, who in 1838 helped found the town of Galveston. Thomas McKinney, one of Menard's business associates, purchased the Del Valle Grant in 1839. His family probably was the first of the property owners to live on the land, which they began to occupy during the late 1840s. McKinney had sold all but approximately 2,800 acres of the land by the time of his death in 1873. The lands within the Santiago Del Valle grant remained primarily agricultural during the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Communities such as Bluff Springs. Pilot Knob, Creedmoor, and Del Valley began to develop during this period, while the northern part of the Del Valle grant has become increasingly urbanized, the southern portion remains largely rural, and is preserved in this state park. (1984) |
Marker No: 15083
Aluminum 27 x 42 Subject Marker
Geographic: 30.183317, -97.724930
Location: 5808 McKinney Falls Parkway, Austin