March 2007 Field Trip to Old Bluffton

Sketch map of old Bluffton townsite.  Click to enlarge.

We had a large turnout for our field trip to Old Bluffton on Lake Buchanan on Saturday, February 17.  Everybody got their exercise for the day carrying equipment over a mile to the town site from where we parked our vehicles.  The weather turned out fine if a bit breezy out on the exposed lakebed.  While one group stayed in the “downtown” area to record such building remains as the hotel and the cotton gin, another party searched in vain for the prehistoric sites that were glimpsed during an earlier LCRA visit. 

The work conducted thus far at the second location of the Bluffton townsite has led to the identification of ten separate features that include the hotel, cotton gin, grist mill, grocery store/gas station, blacksmith shop, a set of windmill footings, and four residential areas.

Walking out to Bluffton.                                                           Examining the old hotel.

Mapping and shovel testing was conducted at the old hotel location.  The rock rubble pile from the fallen chimney feature at the hotel was measured as covering a 16x12 meter area.  Near the center of the rubble pile, an alignment of cut stones that measures 3x4 meters was discerned.  This feature appears to represent the firebox outlines of a twin-sided firebox for the chimney.  Apparently the fireboxes faced into two separate rooms within the hotel with the dividing line between the two fireboxes being aligned where a wall separated the two rooms.  The three shovel tests excavated around the north and east sides of the hotel ruins revealed an absence of subsurface artifacts. 

Two views of the cotton gin.

Further eastward within the townsite, the foundation features of the cotton gin were also mapped.  At the north end of the cotton gin, the concrete platform for gin engine appears to measure about 3x2 m.  A semi-circular concrete lining that extends immediately southward is attached.  Based on the dark discoloring of the lining and the rubble within, this could represent a firebox.  The dark coloring might also result from spilled engine oil and grease.  Overall, the various concrete features at the cotton gin cover an area measuring 10 meters north-south by 15 meters east-west.

Two types of cisterns or wells.

Another group walked a half mile out to the end of the point to record two of the earliest Anglo-American homesteads in Llano County.  (German emigrants had established settlements a few years earlier along the Llano River in what would become western Llano County).   The earlier of the two homesteads belonged to Billy Davis.  His house was built around 1854 and may have been continuously occupied up until the time plans were made to create the reservoir in the 1930s.  The foundations stones are still in place but the chimney and fireplace are now a pile of rubble having been dismantled - as were all such structures - before the lake was impounded.   In plan, the house foundations form a square roughly 28 feet on a side.  Part of this foundation area was taken up by a porch eight feet wide, so the actual living area was only about 560 square feet. 

Outbuilding at the Asa Arnold Homestead.

Outside one corner of the house are the remains of a cistern or well, an important amenity since the river was almost a mile away.  The occupants of the house must have been very tidy people since there were virtually no artifacts lying about but it is possible the lighter objects were washed away by waves.  A shovel test placed inside the foundations did recover a few glass bottle fragments and some large pieces of slate.  These latter objects may have been used as chimney flashing to prevent the shingles from catching fire. 

Shovel testing near hotel.                                       Artifact scatter.

Michael Willams at hotel.

Many thanks to William Hallmark and his daughter, as well as to Karylon Russell for identifying building sites

photos by Michael Williams and Chuck Hixson.