Fort Worth daily gazette. (Fort Worth, Tex.) 1882-1891, 1889-01-19
LLANO.
A Country Awaiting the Advent of a Rail-
road to Develop Its Resources.
The Granite, Iron, Manganese and Silver County
of Texas-Capital Waiting for the
Iron Horse to Come
LLANo, Tex, Jan. Il, 1889

ILANoi TEX, Jan. ID, 1889,
To the Gazette.
I left San Saba city this morning and
Travelled south to this place. Passing the
southeast corner of the square I passed
by the large spring that 600 feet below
drives mill, gin, etc. 1t IS a fine
large flow and starts out quite a little
river. Going on south 1 soon began to
ascend the blue lime stone hills just
south of San Saba, and the road was
stony one, along a sixty foot roadway
between large pastures covered with live
oaks, mesquite, chin oak, cedar and
chaparel, raining all the time. When
about twelve miles south of town the
country became almost perfectly fiat
and h ere the rain came in torrents, and
this particular fiat country was almost
covered with limestone rocks, some
sharp and up, some side ways, some
round some fat, and in fact,
in every conceivable Eshape and size.
We progressed at the rate of one and a
half miles per hour. The whole fiat was
covered with Wt.ter and muck about knee
deep. Think now of country like that
when a 10 600 horse engine with plow-
man 100 feet high, made of iron with
steel sinews, could not hold scooter
plow in the land ten seconds without be-
ing knocked out of time, and you have a
very faint idea of the condition of the
Undiscovered surface, but the soil in the
little spare surface left between the
stones is very rich, and is filled with the
finest and choicest mesquite grass, and
is well-fitted for the Stockman, and
1Of o. O lrx-i+ n bah hoe
never attack that part of San Saba
county for about fifteen miles on this
road to Llano, but at Cherokee creek as
marked a line as could be drawn is laid
down by nature. Here is a bold run
ming clear creek; on the
north side the country above
described, and on the south side
a splendid rich, red, sandy loan country,
full of iron ore. Very many new farms
have been opened up along on tins red
sandy land. These lands are covered
with poStoak and blackjack without an un-
dergrowth and reminds me very much of
the cross tImbers in early days when
deer could be seen for half mile. Driv-
ing rapidly along through a misty rain
down a little stream, now full of water,
my pleasant drive was suddenly brought
to a surprise in finding myself in Il gap in
the range of high iron hills The INST
clearing away for little while, there
stood to my right a noted place called
Baby Head, a cOne-shaped mound COW
ering many acres at the base and about
$50 feet nigh, with nothing but huge iron
stone of immense size piled up like a
sugar loaf, some OF which looked as if
they would weigh thousands of tons.
They were resting one on another. with
no soil under or between them, lying
sideways, endways, and every other way.
On either side of my road were huge
masses of this same iron stone, some fifty
or more feet high. Immense in size,
they lay in matted and tangled mass
upon each other. My attention was
called to the quartz rocks, some places IN
order, at others scattered. There are
strong indications of silver or other ores
which are claimed TO exist here in paying
quantities. On we go over the
rich red sandy lands Here 10
my right is pile of rocks