Block House
At the entrance to Block House Municipal Utility District in Cedar Park, Texas just north of Austin. http://www.williamson-county-historical-commission.org/CEDAR_PARK/Tumlinson_Blockhouse-block_house_Historical_marker_Cedar_Park_Texas.html
Julia Scott Gibson at Block House
A Ranger force was needed to protect the frontier just above Austin, therefore, Captain Tumlinson was commissioned to raise a company for that purpose. Early in January 1836, he reported that he had a company of sixty mounted men ready for service. The entire company had been gathered from the territory along the Colorado River and was well acquainted with the country over which they were to range. Austin had not been located at that time, and the place designated for the Rangers to gather was at Hornsby's Rend on the Colorado River about ten miles below the place where Austin now stands. The evening the company met, a lady by the name of Mrs. Ribbons came into camp and reported that her husband and one small child had been killed by a raiding band of Comanche Indians. Mrs. Hibbons and her older child had been taken captive, but she had escaped a short time afterward and had come to get help in rescuing her child from the Indians.
Captain Tumlinson and his men, with Reuben Hornsby as guide, took the trail soon after supper that evening, and by ten o'clock the next morning they came upon the camp of the Comanche's. Taking the Indians by surprise, the Rangers easily rescued the child and captured all the horses they possessed. After this experience, the troops proceeded to their appointed station on the headwaters of Brushy Creek where they built a blockhouse or fort and called it TUMLINSON BLOCKHOUSE. They made their headquarters there until the latter part of February, when the invasion of Santa Anna made it necessary for them to be recalled.
This is the first known habitation of white men in the territory which is now called Williamson County. The place at present is called Block House Springs and is marked by the home of Judge A. S. Walker. Soon after the Rangers left it in 1836, the Indians came and burned the building and no one returned to build it again.