A Brief History of Summer Camps in Kerr County

Heart o' The Hills Camp for Girls, on the South Fork of the Guadalupe River
in Kerr County, Texas.
Click on any image to enlarge.

Camp Mystic, Hunt

Last month, the world learned about summer camps along the Guadalupe River in Kerr County, Texas, because of the tragedy which occurred on July 4th, 2025. A nine-mile-high column of water fell in the Divide region of our county over a very short time, causing a wall of water to rush downhill and crash through everyone and anything in its path.

We are grieving. We are shaken. But we are not broken.

Camp Mystic suffered terrible losses, losing campers and my friend Dick Eastland. Heart o’ The Hills Camp for Girls, though thankfully not in session that morning, lost its longtime director, my friend Jane Ragsdale.

So many families have lost loved ones – from Hunt to Kerrville. My heart breaks for each of them.

Heart tennis court

If you’re not from here, you might have questions about the summer camping industry. Perhaps I can help. What is the history of those summer camps? What is their story? Here’s a brief history:

When the first sleepaway youth camps in Kerr County opened, in the 1920s, there were no Interstate highways and air travel was extremely rare. Most campers came from Texas's largest cities -- but especially from Dallas and Houston -- and they arrived by train or bus. Leaving the cities in the heat of summer, and then arriving here, where it's cooler because of the elevation, would have been a welcome trip. Then campers were taken from town to camp, traveling unpaved roads which dipped into the riverbed here and there. Higher and higher the campers would travel, winding their way deeper into the green hills, following the ribbon of river. 

When they finally arrived at their camp, and settled into their cabins, tired and hungry, a type of paradise greeted them. The green river beckoned. Horseback riding was available. Campers were taught to shoot guns, arrows; they were instructed in athletics; they learned to paddle a canoe. 

Rec Hall, Camp Mystic

And more than one camper wrote home to tell how good the food was at camp, how it was piled high on the tables, and how, after a day busy with camp activities, the food tasted so good.

Why wouldn't campers, even later in life, think of Kerr County as paradise?

Summer youth camping in Kerr County began in 1921 when Herbert Crate opened Camp Rio Vista between Ingram and Hunt. Crate was the CEO of the Houston YMCA. Knowing the "Y" had established camps along the eastern seaboard, Crate was certain the idea would work in Texas.

According to an article written by the late Jane Ragsdale in the "Kerr County Album," Crate called Rio Vista the "Summer Character Camp for Boys."

Crate's first summer was not what he expected: "100 men promised to send their sons if he opened a camp -- yet the first summer, Crate found himself with 21 counselors, and only 16 boys." His words of wisdom for those who followed: "Never start a camp from scratch."

Despite his advice, other camps soon followed.

Heart o' The Hills Inn

Edward J. "Doc" Stewart, the head football and basketball coach at the University of Texas at Austin in the early 1920s, is responsible for the beginning days of three well-known Kerr County camps: Camp Stewart for Boys, Heart O' the Hills Camp for Girls, and Camp Mystic.

Stewart started his first camp here, "Camp Texas" in 1924, using the old West Texas Fairgrounds, between today's Junction Highway and Guadalupe Street in Kerrville. Not surprisingly, the camp's colors were orange and white.

For three summers Stewart operated his camp in Kerrville, offering two 30 day terms. In 1927 the camp moved to its present location, 16 miles west of Kerrville, on the north fork of the Guadalupe River.

"Doc" Stewart started another camp in 1926, Camp Stewart for Girls, on the south fork of the Guadalupe; a year later it became Camp Mystic for Girls. In those early days, Camp Mystic had 1400 acres, and the girls were housed in 18 log cabins constructed from cypress logs cut on the camp.

Camp Mystic waterfront

Sensing another opportunity, Stewart also built "Heart O' the Hills Inn" as a place for parents to stay after they'd dropped their children off at camp. This inn later became Heart O' the Hills Camp for Girls, under the leadership of Kenneth and Velma Jones, opening for campers in 1953.

Another pioneer in Kerr County camping was Miss Ora Johnson, who founded Camp Waldemar in 1926. Miss Johnson was the principal of Brackenridge High School in San Antonio, and many of her early campers were from that city. 

In 1928 Miss Johnson brought in from Mexico a "Russian-born German rock mason, Ferdinand Rehbeger." It was Rehbeger who constructed many of the stone and cedar buildings that give Waldemar its distinct architecture.

Miss Johnson died in late 1931; ownership fell to her brothers, and eventually a niece, Doris Johnson, became director in 1934. She continued in this role until 1978.

Waldemar was noted for its horseback program, and was, for a time, known as "the Texas Horseback Camp for Girls." Connie Reeves, a noted instructor and rider, was hired in 1937 and continued with the camp for many decades.

Other notable camps begun during this time include Camp La Junta, Camp Arrowhead, and Kickapoo Kamp. Later additions include the much-needed Texas Lions Camp, Camp Loma Linda on the grounds of Mo-Ranch, and Echo Hill Camp in Medina.

Summer camps in Kerr County are a paradise for children and young people, a paradise with a long history. They provide jobs, help the local economy, and, in many cases, they bring Kerrville and Kerr County new residents. 

It is my hope the summer camping industry survives. Please know I am working hard to ensure it does.

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead July 31, 2025.

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Living through history

During one of the many press conferences last week.
Photo by Kerr County Lead.
Click on any image to enlarge.

We are all living through history right now. From the early morning of July 4th, when disaster struck and took away so many from us, until this very hour, it has felt like a slow-moving freight train of tragedy.

My notes for press conferences

Here’s the lesson I’ve learned over the past two weeks: when Kerrville and Kerr County called for help, the world answered.

And even before help arrived, city crews were already at work saving people.  Police, Fire, and Parks Department personnel, as well as folks from other departments, got people out of harm’s way. They were heroes from the very first hours of this disaster.

On the evening of July 4th, I wanted the people of Kerrville to know this:

Yesterday, we were anticipating coming together as a community to celebrate the Fourth of July. Overnight those hopes were taken from us.

Friday became a day of tragedies. Together, we mourn each victim and the loss their families now endure.

It’s important to remember Friday became a day of miracles, too.  Rescues continue even as darkness falls today. The heroic efforts of men and women first responders have helped hundreds and will not stop as night approaches.

I want the people of Kerrville to know a team of dedicated professionals is working to rescue those in peril and find those who are missing.

Please pray for our community.

What was planned

The State of Texas sent hundreds of experts; the Coast Guard was here on July 4th, using helicopters to rescue people. As of July 15, there are several thousand trained professionals here and working, from the city, from the county, from the state, and from the nation.

Governor Greg Abbott has been here at least 5 times. The Lt. Governor has been here many times. Both US Senators have been here numerous times. Our representative in Congress has been here numerous times.  Our legislators have been here numerous times.

And on Friday, July 11, 2025, the President of the United States and the First Lady came to Kerrville and offered their support and their prayers.

In the long history of our community, I do not know of another official visit by a sitting president of the United States.  His visit shows his administration is focused on helping us through this tragedy, and I’m grateful.

Memorial on Water Street

Recovering from this tragedy will be a marathon, not a sprint. Over the next several months it will feel like no progress is being made – but steps will have been taken every single day.

I ask you to pray for Kerr County – for those who mourn, for those who wait, and for those who help.

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who has a municipal side-gig. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead July 17, 2025

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The backstory on the new Frost Bank in Kerrville

Memorial Funeral Home, 200 block of Clay Street.
Originally built as the home of Charles and Magdalena's eldest daughter, Caroline.
From the collection of Jeannie Berger.
Click on any image to enlarge.

On most workday mornings, I walk along Clay Street from Water to Jefferson streets. I’ve been serving as an unofficial ‘sidewalk superintendent’ over most of the construction projects along that two-block section, from the renovation of the A. C. & Myrta Schreiner House (for our community’s museum), to the transformation of the bank building now housing Texas Regional Bank.

That bank building was originally built for a Kerrville bank: the Charles Schreiner Bank. It was a built as a new drive-through bank for them, and it served several other banks, as well: NCNB Texas, NationsBank and, later, Bank of America.

Now, Frost Bank is building a branch across Clay Street from the Texas Regional Bank (and diagonally from Sunflower Bank). More than one person has remarked how nice it is to see the Butt-Holdsworth Memorial Library from Main Street, though that view will likely not last very long as additional buildings appear on that block.

Lena Schreiner (seated), and daughters
Frances, Caroline, and Emilee

Frost Bank will be built on lots that once held the home of Hiram and Caroline Partee. Caroline was the second eldest daughter of Charles and Magdalena Schreiner. They built the home in 1902. Later, after the Partees moved to San Antonio, another Schreiner daughter, the youngest, Frances Hellen, lived in that same house with her new husband, Solomon Leroy Jeffers; they lived there from about 1905 to 1907. 

The home later went through several owners, including the Masons, Brooks, and Wolfmuellers – and in August, 1945, the home was converted into the Memorial Funeral Home. 

Gene Stover was the owner-operator of the funeral home (though not owner of the house), and his daughter, Jeannie, provided the research about this property. I always enjoy hearing from her.

Another friend, Gene Hutzler, bought the funeral home around 1957, and owned it until about 1963. (He later founded Kerrville Funeral Home.)

The old house was torn down in 1972, by the Plummer family, which owned the funeral home that is now owned by the Grimes family.

One of the things that interests me about the current construction is the long history of business dealings between the Schreiner family and the family of Thomas Claiborne Frost.

Thomas Claiborne Frost

Charles Schreiner and T. C. Frost had many things in common. Both were born in the 1830s. Both served as Texas Rangers. Both operated mercantile businesses which later branched into banking. Both operated wool commission businesses. Both the Schreiner Bank and the Frost Bank survived depressions and recessions when other banks failed.

And both supported the extension of the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad from San Antonio to Kerrville, and both (likely) for the same reason: the transportation of wool and mohair.

For a long time, I thought Charles Schreiner's wealth came mainly from his Kerrville store and bank. Later, I added his real estate investments, not just in towns like Kerrville and neighboring communities, but also the numerous ranches he owned. By 1900 he owned around 600,000 acres stretching from Kerrville to Menard. Schreiner also financed and organized great cattle drives north to the markets in Kansas and elsewhere which were often quite profitable. Add to these the corporate boards on which he served, mostly for companies in which he'd made an investment, including the San Antonio and Aransas Pass Railroad, and the original National Bank of Commerce.

Any one of these would have made Charles Schreiner a comparatively wealthy man, and would have made him very similar to other Texas businessmen of that era. It seems most Texas towns had a primary mover -- the one person who owned the bank, the water system, the electric system, the telephone system in their little town.

Lately, though, I've thought the true source of his wealth was something else, something I would have never guessed, and that source differentiates Schreiner from the other Texas successes. 

Charles Armand Schreiner

Schreiner created at least two local commodities markets which served international buyers: a market for wool, and, to a lesser extent, a market for mohair.

Sheep and goats, in those days, were an anathema to most cattle ranchers, but Schreiner championed these livestock in several important ways.

First, through his bank, he influenced ranchers to diversify into sheep and goats. Basically, many of the loans to ranchers for livestock stipulated that some of the capital was to be spent on sheep and goats. I’m sure this was not always well received, but there was cleverness in Schreiner’s policy. Sheep provided an opportunity for profit at least twice a year, when the wool was clipped, plus the additional opportunity for sale as meat; goats offered similar advantages to cattle.

These fiber products also helped Schreiner build a market for what was possibly his most clever enterprise: wool and mohair warehousing. He ran a huge wool and mohair commission business. While he cannot be credited with creating this concept, one could certainly argue he perfected it locally. In fact, there was a time when Kerrville – little Kerrville, on the edge of the Chihuahuan Desert, far from any large cities – was credited with more mohair commission sales than any other market in the world. Schreiner had, in other words, not only created a market for these fibers, but had cornered that market.

There was another Texan who was operating an important wool and mohair commission business at the time: T. C. Frost.

Frost, who operated out of San Antonio, had an advantage over Schreiner: access to railroad transportation, and, likely, better capitalization of his business.

Schreiner, however, had an advantage over Frost: closer proximity to wool and mohair producers, and long business dealings with the ranchers of the region. By the time the railroad arrived in Kerrville in 1887, Schreiner capitalized on his advantages in the wool and mohair business, which prospered.

By 1896, T. C. Frost ended his wool commission business altogether, and focused on banking. In 1899, he applied for a national bank charter, and his bank became the Frost National Bank of San Antonio, with resources of $1.3 million.

Charles Schreiner’s bank remained unincorporated, and operated on the personal financial responsibility of Charles Schreiner, which was likely in excess of $1.3 million.

Frost died of a stroke in 1903, and his family continued and enlarged the banking operations. Charles Schreiner died much later, in 1927, and for many years his family continued his banking business. However, the bank which carried his name for over 120 years failed in April, 1990.

Meanwhile, I’ll keep an eye on the construction of the new bank – as I walk by most mornings.

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who wonders if one more bank can be squeezed onto remaining corner of the intersection of Main and Clay streets in downtown Kerrville. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead July 3, 2025

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What is Kerrville's Story?

The Myrta and A. C. Schreiner house, June 17, 2025.

As a museum is being built for our community, I’ve been thinking a lot about how the Heart of the Hills Heritage Center will tell our story. Though many of us are working on the project, and many voices will tell the story, it’s been on my mind a lot, lately.

What’s the basic outline of our history here?

Kerrville’s story begins long before streets were paved or buildings raised. For over 10,000 years, people have lived along the banks of the Guadalupe. Many different early Americans called this valley home, drinking from the same river we still cherish today. Most of those peoples are completely lost to history, aside from the few stone tools they left behind, and a few rough images they painted on the limestone bluffs of the North Fork of the Guadalupe River.

The town we know now got its start in the late 1840s when a group of shingle-makers, led by Joshua D. Brown, built their camp on a bluff above the river. They informally called their community “Brownsborough.” 

When the Texas Legislature created Kerr County in 1856, it decided the county seat would be named Kerrsville, in honor of James Kerr, a key figure in Texas independence. The very first commissioners court session accepted a gift of land from Joshua D. Brown as the site of the county seat.

Early progress here was derived from the power of water. In 1857, Christian Dietert built a grist and sawmill powered by the river. Its stone remnants still rest below Water Street, a whisper of the town's industrious beginnings. That mill aided in the building of the town – and helped process the agricultural products of local farms.

After the Civil War, a young Charles Schreiner moved into town from Turtle Creek, opened a general store, and over time built a commercial empire spanning cattle, banking, and retail. He didn’t just sell goods—he helped build a town. In 1917, he founded Schreiner Institute, planting the seeds of what is now Schreiner University, which first opened in 1923.

By the late 1800s, Kerrville had grown into a small but bustling trade center. Cattle ranching took off, with Schreiner and his partners sending hundreds of thousands of cattle up the trails to Kansas railheads. The arrival of the railroad in 1887 marked a turning point—suddenly, goods and people could arrive with more ease than ever before. Schreiner was also instrumental in getting the railroad to come to Kerrville.

Kerrville officially incorporated in 1889; Joseph A. Tivy was Kerrville’s first mayor. 

Starting in the late 19th century, Kerrville’s clean air and mild climate drew a different kind of visitor—those seeking a cure. Tuberculosis patients arrived by wagon, and later by train, and soon sanatoriums sprang up around the valley. The most notable was the Thompson Sanatorium, later operated by the State of Texas for African-American TB patients. Though that chapter closed by 1949, its story lingers in the bricks and memories of today’s Kerrville State Hospital.

Sheep and goats may not seem glamorous, but by the 1930s, they made Kerrville famous. The wool and mohair industry, thanks to tough little Angoras, and hearty sheep, turned our region into the “Mohair Capital of the World.” Our area was a center for wool production, too. Ranchers clipped and shipped fleeces by the ton, by oxen-drawn wagons, and later trucks, and Kerrville prospered from the natural fibers of wool and mohair. Hundreds, even thousands, of people worked in this industry – and made it a success. The work was very hard, and the days were very long.

The Depression brought struggle, but also grit. The Civilian Conservation Corps built Kerrville-Schreiner Park, still a local jewel, while the community later pulled together in 1950 to build Louise Hays Park in a single day—a testament to what neighbors can do when they roll up their sleeves.

Over the years, the same Guadalupe River that powered mills and irrigated farms also drew children. Religious and summer camps flourished in the hills—Camp Stewart, Camp Mystic, Heart of the Hills Camp for Girls, Camp Waldemar, Mo-Ranch, and the Texas Lions Camp, just to name a few. For generations, kids from across the world spent a special part of their summers here, catching fireflies and memories under Hill Country skies. Many of those campers, years later, moved here, making Kerr County their home.

There are so many people who’ve made a big impact here – business leaders, civic leaders, church leaders, and even an artist or two. We have distinct neighborhoods which have rich histories. There are so many stories to tell, and surprisingly little room in the old Myrta and A. C. Schreiner House to tell them all.

Today’s Kerrville is a blend of all its yesterdays, of course. It’s a city with deep roots and a bright future, where history is more than something you might walk past – history is something each of us make, every time we work to make our community better.

It is my hope, when visitors are finally able to explore the Heart of the Hills Heritage Center, they will not discover someone else’s story – but that each visitor will see a little bit of themselves in the stories told there. We all made this community, together.

Until next week, all the best.

Joe Herring Jr. is a Kerrville native who enjoys learning about our community’s history. This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead June 19, 2025.

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Over 65 Million Years Old

A small fossilized urchin, found on a Kerrville hillside, years ago

Walking up a quiet Kerrville hillside one Sunday a few years ago, I bent down and picked up a tiny fossilized sea urchin. It was no museum showpiece—just a coin-sized Phymosoma texanum, etched with radiating ridges like a miniature sunburst. Holding it, I felt its age: somewhere between 66 and 145 million years old, an ancient echo of another world.

That moment—rainclouds gathering and that shard of deep time in my hand—reminds me why I love wandering around these limestone slopes. Kerr County sits on the Edwards Plateau, where Cretaceous-layered shale and limestone hide marine fossils: snails, bivalves, even relics of dinosaurs and small sea creatures.

As a boy, I collected “Texas Hearts” (Cucullaea molds) and “stone ears” (various oyster and clam fossils). My son took it further—spying corkscrew-shaped Tylostomatidae in every size, and tightly-wound Turritella.

“Holding that spiral shell, I felt the sea under my feet.”

There are even spots scattered around Kerr County with dinosaur footprints from the Cretaceous era. And yes, I’ve spent many afternoons chasing fossil clues—rain clouds on the horizon, wind hinting at ancient tides.

So what’s my advice if you go fossil hunting around here?

• Don't trespass. Trespassing isn’t worth it—there are plenty of accessible, fossil-rich hillsides.
• Hit slopes, not summits. Erosion works in your favor, exposing layers in cuts and eroding hillsides.
• Riverbeds and the banks of rivers are good hunting sites. Gravel and rocks often host amazing fossils.
• Look for limestone or shale with shell-like textures. Those layers are fossil hot spots.
• Respect what you find. Remove small, loose pieces—but leave larger formations behind, where they belong.

“It’s humbling, holding something older than imagination.”

That Sunday’s little urchin may not headline a museum, but it's a touchstone. It's evidence that beneath our feet lies a hidden archive: a sea world frozen in rock, waiting to be rediscovered.

So next time you’re out wandering among our Hill Country ridges, keep an eye out. Maybe lift a piece of limestone or shale—and let it surprise you. Because that tiny fossil in your pocket? It’s older than Kerrville itself, and likely older than most of us can truly imagine.

Until next time—and happy, responsible hunting.

This column originally appeared in the Kerr County Lead June 26, 2025.