..... About this Texas Castroville....

Picture it. It was the Spring of 1961 and I was 10 years old.  My 
sister, Cheryl, had to give a major presentation in Speech class and selected 
the Indians of Texas as her subject matter.  We drove up to Uncle Bill and 
Aunt Berts on the east fork of the Medina River.  My Dad had grown up in San 
Antonio and as a young man, his family camped of the Medina and they knew 
several different families.  Being a photographer, Dad decided to make a 
movie of the area to coincide with Cheryls presentation.

     Bill and Berts house sat on the west side of the river. On the opposing 
side was a large field with a single oak tree.  Bill informed Dad that there 
must have been some major occupations over the millennia since they were 
constantly finding points when they plowed the field.  We all walked across 
the creek and into the field toward the tree.  At one point, Dad stopped and 
leaned over, picking up three points: a Castroville, a Montell and a Travis. 
This was the Castroville and everyone looked at it in amazement as it was in 
perfect condition.  The Montell was made of rootbeer flint, but was missing 
the barbs, tip and a small crescent shaped ding on one edge of the blade.

     Later that weekend, we went over to Uncle Andys farm.  He had an old log 
cabin style storage shed with nothing but boxes and buckets of Indian relics 
that he had collected on his place over the years.  He was in his 90's and 
legally blind, but he still managed to drive all over his place in a jeep 
collecting artifacts after rains.  Anyway, he went in the shed and brought 
out an unbelieveable axe head. It looked like an oblong rounded river stone 
on one end, but the other end looked like the blade  of a large spear point. 
The whole piece was fully patinated and Dad was able to finish off the film 
with Cheryl holding it.

     Back at the house, Bill pulled out a folder containing reproduced 
stories from when the first settlers were moving into the area.  The 
Comanches would meet on the plateau at the headwaters of the Medina.  They 
would split into raiding parties and each go down the east and west forks of 
the upper Medina raiding the settlements.  The stories were very graphic as 
to the outcome of many of the families they attacked.

      We also talked to Aunt Artis, Berts sister.  They grew up there on a 
farm in the 20's.  When they would walk home from school, Artis said she 
remembered all the arrowheads they would see. She said they didn't think much 
about them except that they would only use the thin, perfect ones for 
skipping on the water.  All these years later, I still think back about her 
telling that story and I get the shakes.