Today has been a slow day, looking through some old newspaper articles. I came back across a mention of an ancient pioneer/native shootout: https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth466442/m1/3/zoom/?q=%22bandera%20road%22%20indians&resolution=1.5&lat=5756.035788640835&lon=2046.414719503886

In the article, a reporter is taking a fifty year old man, F. G. Tinsley who was at the battle to find it. The newspaper article is from 1890. The battle happened around 1860.

The description of the battle site is vague. There are a few descriptions of where the people of Utopia thought the battle was. "Two miles up the Bandera Road." "Ten miles out, by Eagle Peak." Even the article, which finds the battle site is very vague. All that's communicated is:

"[We] took a day trip into Seco Canyon..."
"...up the canyon past the forks of the creek..."
"A lone peak standing out from the foot of a big mountain, which separated the two creeks."

It took some time to find the place from that description, but I know exactly where that battle is now. I found it a few years ago using personal knowledge of the area (there's no official "Seco Canyon" and the creek is never named) and a few USGS maps (finding the creek split and topographial contours).

I'm reading this in 2023, 133 years from the article, 163 years from the battle. And from just a few words from an old man and a reporter in that article, I found the place: 29.694478375138978, -99.43508145805012

I miss knowing so much history about the Hill Country and knowing that I probably won't be going back because the government is declaring me and my trans friends persona non grata.

But I do hope I can go back one day.