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PLEASANTON,
TEXASAtascosa
County, South Texas
US 281, Hwy 97, FMs 476, 5350, and 1334
5 miles E
of Jourdanton
33 miles S of San
Antonio
21 miles SW of Floresville
Population:
8,266 (2000)
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| "An
oil painting of the 1885 Atascosa County courthouse that stood in Pleasanton.
The legend says that when the county seat was moved to Jourdanton
in 1910, this building was lifted from its foundation and moved there. It has
since been demolished. This painting hangs in the Longhorn Museum in Pleasanton,
Texas." - Terry Jeanson, October 30, 2006 |
History in a Pecan
Shell
Indian troubles in the late 1850s prompted the establishment
of Pleasanton. The town of Amphion (not 100% confirmed to have been the Atascosa
county seat) had been formed 9 miles from present-day Pleasanton. Amphion was
bypassed by the railroad and is today considered to be a ghost town. John Bowen
is credited with naming the community after another settler named John Pleasant.
Bowen generously donated five square miles of land to form the new town.
In 1861 the population consisted only of a dozen families and the couthouse was
a simple log structure. Nine years later a new courthouse was built and the log
courthouse then served as a school. In 1875 the log school was replaced by a stone
building. As county seat, Pleasanton had a bright future. At least it was bright
up until 1910 when Jourdanton became the county seat.
The Missouri Pacific
Railroad connected Pleasanton to San
Antonio in 1912 and two years later the town had service to Corpus
Christi.
Pleasanton was thriving with a sizeable population of 1,500
and became a collection point for cattle herds traveling north to Kansas.
In the mid 1960s the "Cowboy Homecoming" became an annual event since town promoters
considered the city to be "the birthplace of the cowboy." The festival is held
each August.
The population of Pleasanton reached over 6,000 in 1980 and
over 8,000 in the mid 1990s.
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Pleasanton Hotels |
Pleasanton
Chronicles:Cowboy
Tree by Mike Cox
(From
Mike Cox's "Texas Tales" Column)
Many a Texas town had
its hanging tree, an old oak bearing its ugly legends as well as leaves. But on
a more pleasant note, Pleasanton may be the only place in the state – and the
world for that matter – that had a cowboy tree.
In a way, it’s natural
enough that Pleasanton would have such a tree, unnatural as the combination of
the words “cowboy” and “tree” seems to be. The Atascosa County community south
of San Antonio has long claimed to be the birthplace of the cowboy.
While
proving that the very first Texas cowpoke swung into the saddle in or near Pleasanton
would be a bit of a stretch, no one can question that the cattle business and
the men who made it happen played an important role in Pleasanton’s past.
An
historical marker on the city hall square notes that 43,000 head of Longhorn cattle
passed through Pleasanton during the first three months of 1873.
Located
on the old El Camino Real at an easy crossing of the Atascosa River, Pleasanton
had long been a transportation crossroads. When profit-minded Texans began pushing
Longhorns up from the South Texas brush country to the railhead in Kansas in the
early 1870s, Pleasanton made a convenient stopping place on what became known
as the Chisholm Trail.
The Stock Raiser Association of Western Texas frequently
gathered in Pleasanton for its yearly convention, and the Western Stock Journal
listed Pleasanton as its place of publication. next
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