Enchanted Rock

Enchanted Rock is a spectacular granite pluton in southwestern Llano County about twenty miles north of Fredericksburg, Texas, in the Texas Hill Country. The granite dome rises some 385 feet above the streambed of nearby Sandy Creek to a maximum elevation of 1,825 feet above mean sea level. This great granite monadnock is the second largest such mountain in the United States (the largest is Stone Mountain, Georgia). In 1992 a University of Texas geophysics researcher, Ian W. D. Dalziel, linked Enchanted Rock geologically with granite peaks in Antarctica. The name Enchanted Rock derives from Spanish and Anglo-Texas interpretations of Indian legends and related folklore, which attribute magical and spiritual properties to the ancient landmark.

The local Comanche and Tonkawa Indians both feared and revered the rock, and were said to offer sacrifices at its base. One Indian tradition holds that a band of brave warriors, the last of their tribe, defended themselves on the rock from the attacks of other Indians. The warriors, however, were finally overcome and killed, and since then Enchanted Rock has been haunted by their ghosts. Another legend tells of an Indian princess who threw herself off the rock when she saw her people slaughtered by enemy Indians; now her spirit is said to haunt Enchanted Rock. Yet another tale tells of the spirit of an Indian chief who was doomed to walk the summit forever as punishment for sacrificing his daughter; the indentations on the rock's summit are his footprints. Finally, there is the story of a white woman who was kidnapped by Indians but escaped and lived on Enchanted Rock, where her screams were said to be audible at night. The Indian legends of the haunting of Enchanted Rock were probably bolstered by the way the rock glitters on clear nights after rain, and by the creaking noises reported on cool nights after warm days. Scientists have since theorized that the glittering is caused either by water trapped in indentations in the rock's surface or by the moon reflecting off wet feldspar, and the creaking noises by contraction of the rock's outer surface as it cools.

The first European to see Enchanted Rock was possibly Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca,qv who traveled through this area before 1536. The rock was visited and described by many during the sixteenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries. Capt. Henry S. Brown, who came from Green DeWitt's colony on a punitive Indian expedition in 1829, appears to have been the first Anglo-Texan to visit the location. William B. DeWees described the rock in 1834.

A number of stories involve rumors of great mineral wealth to be found at Enchanted Rock. Spanish explorers believed it was one large chunk of silver or iron. They also sought legendary gold and silver mines nearby, and some early Texans believed that the lost "Bowie Mines" were in the vicinity west of Enchanted Rock. Some gold has in fact been mined near Enchanted Rock, but not enough to be commercially profitable. According to an account written in 1834 the rock was once supposed to be of platinum.

One of the most enduring and romantic stories involving Enchanted Rock is that of a young Spanish soldier, Don Jesús Navarro, and his rescue of the Indian maiden Rosa. Navarro supposedly came from Monterrey to San José y San Miguel de Aguayo Mission in San Antonio in 1750. At the mission he met and fell in love with Rosa, the Christian daughter of the Indian chief Tehuan. But Rosa was kidnapped by a band of Comanches bent on sacrificing her to the spirits of Enchanted Rock. Her daring lover followed them there and managed to rescue her as she was about to be burned at the stake.

Another tale, given official credence when the state of Texas commemorated it with a plaque near the summit of Enchanted Rock in 1936, relates a heroic episode in the life of Capt. John Coffee Hays. Cut off by Comanche raiders from his company of Texas Rangers on a surveying trip in the fall of 1841, Hays took refuge on Enchanted Rock and singlehandedly held off the Indians in a three-hour battle that ended when the frustrated Indians fled, convinced even more firmly than before that Enchanted Rock was possessed by malevolent spirits.

Enchanted Rock was the subject of a natural-area survey published by the Lyndon Baines Johnson School of Public Affairs in 1979. The site was acquired by the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department in that year and was opened as Enchanted Rock State Park in March of 1984.

The 1,643-acre park is roughly triangular, and Enchanted Rock is near its center. The first owners of this land were Anavato and María Martínez, to whom a headright certificate was issued on March 16, 1838. They sold it to James Robinson in 1841, and he in turn sold it to Samuel A. Maverick in 1844. Maverick, believing that Enchanted Rock might prove to be a source of mineral wealth, had part of the property surveyed in 1847, and it was patented to him by the state on September 22, 1851. Maverick's widow sold the property to N. P. P. Browne in 1880-81; on February 19, 1886, Browne sold it to John R. Moss, who sold it to J. D. Slator later that year. Two ranching brothers, C. T. and A. F. Moss, bought the property from Slator in 1895 and in November 1897 partitioned it between them, except for Enchanted Rock itself, which they held in common. Eventually C. T. Moss acquired his brother's holdings, and in 1927 C. T.'s son Tate inherited the property and opened it to the tourist trade. On October 26, 1946, he sold it to Albert Faltin, who later sold a half interest to Llano rancher Charles H. Moss, C. T.'s grandson. Charles and his wife, Ruth, managed and eventually acquired full title to the property but decided to sell it in 1978. Moss first offered it to the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, but the agency could not pay his price. The Nature Conservancy, a private concern based in Arlington, Virginia, bought the property for $1.3 million on March 1, 1978, and agreed to act as interim owner until the state could take over, thus guaranteeing that the area would not be opened to private development. United States secretary of the interior Cecil Andrus told Governor Dolph Briscoe that a federal land and water conservation grant would be made available for purchase of the area when matched by state funds, and the Nature Conservancy deeded the land to the state on March 7, 1978, with the agreement that Moss would continue to operate it until June 1 of that year.

Besides Enchanted Rock itself, the Enchanted Rock State Natural Area includes Turkey Peak and Enchanted Rock Cave among its natural features, as well as a wide variety of native flora and fauna. Among the more than 400 species of plants in the park are live oak, Texas hickory, blackjack oak, cedar, American elm, honey mesquite, and pecan trees; lily yucca, prickly pear, barrel cactus, strawberry cactus, and pencil cactus; and about 100 species of mosses, lichens, and liverworts. Animals found in the park include white-tailed deer, armadillos, bobcats, raccoons, black rock squirrels, red foxes, cotton rats, four kinds of hawk, turkeys, great horned owls, turkey vultures, copperheads, diamondbacks, cottonmouths, bull snakes, checkered ribbon snakes, and spotted whiptails. The park also contains some 114 archeological sites, at which various Indian artifacts have been unearthed. The area has long been a favorite destination of hikers, campers, rock-climbers, hang-gliders, and other outdoor enthusiasts from around the state. In 1977 an estimated 50,000 people visited the area; the park drew 30,000 visitors in three months when it reopened in March 1984 after eighteen months of renovation. With $1.9 million in improvements made during those months, in 1986 the park had a new headquarters building, a visitors' center, fifty-two tent sites, sixty primitive campsites, forty picnic sites, and numerous hiking trails.

Sources:

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "ENCHANTED ROCK LEGENDS," http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/EE/lxe1.html
(accessed August 9, 2005).

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "ENCHANTED ROCK," http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/EE/rje13.html
(accessed August 9, 2005).

Handbook of Texas Online, s.v. "ENCHANTED ROCK STATE NATURAL AREA,"
http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/EE/gie1.html (accessed August
9, 2005).