Isaac & Tena Thurm Venable, Early Settlers on Bull Creek

This is an expanded post of my history article for the July 2018 issue of the Northwest Austin Civic Association (NWACA) newsletter (http://nwaca.org/newsletter/)

In my March 2018 newsletters article, I wrote about the Thurms, early German settlers on Bull Creek. To recap, William Thurm came from Germany in 1850 with his wife, Caroline, and two young daughters; a third soon born in Texas and the family settled along Bull Creek. This is a continuation of their story.

There is a hike and bike trail on Bull Creek Greenbelt Upper, with entry just off Old Spicewood Springs Road. On the greenbelt are a set of ruins. In 2004 an environmental impact review was done in preparation for building the hike and bike trail. Unfortunately, the historical research done as part of that review only traced the history of the ruins back to the Smith family that bought the property in 1941 for recreational use. But the ruins’ history is much older. The ruins are the remains of the homestead of Isaac and Tena Thurm Venable; Tena was one of the three Thurm daughters.

During the Civil War, Isaac Venable served in the 1st Tennessee Light Artillery, US Army. After the war, he moved to Texas settling on Bull Creek with his sister and mother and taught school at the original Oak Grove School on Bull Creek, a one room log cabin established ca. 1864 on what is today’s Old Lampasas Trail, later moved near today’s Oak Grove Cemetery.

In 1872 Isaac Venable married Tena Thurm, daughter of William Thurm, and settled along Bull Creek. The ruins on Bull Creek Greenbelt Upper are those of the homestead of Isaac and Tena Thurm Venable. Richards’ Valley of Cascade Creek describes the house in some detail: “The house contained two large rooms, one fourteen feet square and the other one sixteen by fourteen feet in size. Behind these rooms were two smaller rooms, one the kitchen and the other a bedroom. The hall which divided these rooms was twelve feet wide and twenty feet long. It was here that Mrs. Venable placed her dining table. The house faced east and a long porch ran the length of the house on the front. Mrs. Venable had a well drilled at the edge of the porch so that she had only to step to the bannister and dip the well bucket to have water in the house. After the well was complete, the water was found to be unsatisfactory for household purposes, so a second well was drilled.”

Isaac Venable apparently proceeded Tena is death (date of death, burial unknown) because the homestead was later used as a landmark for defining roads, appearing on the 1892-1902 Travis County road maps as the Tena Venable house.

Tena passed in 1921 and was buried in Oakwood Cemetery Annex alongside her Thurm sisters.

In 1935 heirs sold the property to one Dorothy Duvall (no relation to Duval as in Duval Rd.). The ruins of the house Duvall built are near the Venable homestead, across Spicewood Springs Road, on the hill next to the AT&T building, now part of the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve. The adventures of Dorothy Duvall vs. the City of Austin are a whole 'nother story for some future article!

In 1941 Duvall sold 40 acres of her land to Matthew Irving Smith and Hazeline Ingram Smith whose heirs later, wishing to preserve the property, sold to the City of Austin ca. 1998, making up today’s Bull Creek Greenbelt Upper.

So, lace up your hiking shoes and go hiking or biking on the trail that runs through the old Isaac and Tena Thurm Venable homestead. But please stay on the trail; remember, this was the home of pioneers.

Photos

Interpretive sign on the Bull Creek Greenbelt Upper trail traces history to Smith family in the 1940s

Aerial photo from 1967 (pre Loop 360) shows, left to right, the Dorothy Duvall homestead, the remains of the Isaac & Tena Thurm Venable homestead, and the original Thurm homestead. In this photo, Spicewood Springs Road runs north between the Duvall house and Venable site. As late as 1937 maps and aerial photos show the old road, then called Bull Creek Road, ran east of the Venable homestead along, and in some places, in Bull Creek.

Map showing Mrs. Tena Venable's house. Travis County Clerk Records: Road Book Precinct 2, book, 1898/1902

Another map showing the Tena Venable house. Travis County Clerk Records: Road Book Precinct 2, book, 1898/1902

1898-1902, Map of Travis County Roads shows original Oak Grove School on what is now Old Lampasas Trail (was then Bull Creek Rd) and the Venable homestead.

References, More Info

Entrance to the trail is near 5479 Old Spicewood Springs Rd, Austin, TX 78759

Barkley, Mary Starr (1963). History of Travis County and Austin, 1839-1899

Richards, Cathryn. Valley of Cascade Creek. Written in 1961 but unpublished. Copy at Austin History Center.

Travis County Clerk Records: Road Book Precinct 2, book, 1898/1902. Tena Venable home is used as reference in defining Travis County roads. See "Bull Cr & Spicewood Spr Road", p355; "Bull Creek Road", p357.

Find A Grave provides a list of the Thurm daughters, all buried in Oakwood Cemetery Annex

• Louise M Thurm Waechter (1841 - 1922)
• Tena M Thurm Venable (1847 - 1921) (May also appear as Tina; Clementine)
• Bettie Thurm (1854 - 1934) (Never married; appears also in some deeds as Elisabeth)

Thurms, Early German Settlers on Bull Creek

This is an expanded post of my history article for the March 2018 issue of the Northwest Austin Civic Association (NWACA) newsletter (http://nwaca.org/newsletter/)

A detailed write-up is on file at the Austin History Center, Travis County Archives and on-line at
https://archive.org/details/ThurmFamilyEarlyGermanSettlersBullCreekAustinTravisCo.TX

Whereas today we see Bull Creek District Park and Greenbelts as wonderful places to hike or swim, the valley formed by Bull Creek was once home to pioneer families. There were schools, cemeteries, churches, water powered mills.

In this article let me take you back in time to visit the homestead of an early pioneer family. Drive down Spicewood Springs Road, west toward Loop 360; turn left down Old Spicewood Springs Road; pull into the 2nd trailhead parking lot on the right with the porta potties. If you can, tune out the drone of Loop 360, imagine an open field where Loop 360 lies. Focus on the gurgle of Bull Creek and the beauty of the Appalachian like hills that surround you. You are now at the location of the old Thurm homestead.

William Thurm (pronounced “Term”) came from Germany in 1850 with his wife, Caroline, and two young daughters; a third soon born in Texas. Arriving in Galveston they lived first in Fredericksburg, then settled here along Bull Creek in 1855 on 80 acres of land purchased from Josiah Fisk, namesake of Fiskville. The family lived in a three-room log cabin constructed at the base of what was known to pioneers as “Thurm Hill”, the steep hill down which today’s Spicewood Springs Road descends. As with other historic homes in Austin, like Edward Zimmerman’s near Fiskville, the Thurm home may have been built from lumber milled at nearby Walden mill south on Bull Creek. Additional land purchases from Fisk in 1873 and 1874 expanded holdings to 340 acres on Bull Creek. The homestead was a landmark for defining Travis County voting precincts No. 14 and 15.

The turn-in to the parking lot corresponds to the old road off Spicewood Springs Road (it wasn’t “Old Spicewood Springs” then) to their farm. Bits of that road, later paved, that passed just east of their home are still visible. If you drive to the other side of Loop 360 you will find the continuation of that old abandoned road under today’s Bluffstone Drive. About where Loop 360 is located was a field. Common to German homesteads of the Texas Hill Country before barbed wire, the field was enclosed with a dry-stack stone wall, not to keep animals in, but rather out of crops.

The Thurms and the Waldens were neighbors. From Clementine (Walden) Jackson’s 1966 book, The Walden home in the valley, she recalls “There was a family of German people by the name of Thurm that settled on Bull Creek about the same time my Grandfather [Hughell] Walden [of Walden mill] did. They came over from Germany and were broke and couldn’t speak English. My grandmother could speak the German language, so she helped and befriended them, so to this day the Thurms’ descendants tell of how their grandparents told them of my Grandmother Walden --how she divided with them and waited on them when they were sick.”

William died ca. 1887, buried in Oak Grove Cemetery along upper east Bull Creek, along today’s Spicewood Springs Road (then Bull Creek Road). Wife Caroline died ca. 1897 and was buried in Walden Cemetery which today sits in the front yard of a family on Creekbluff Drive, west of Loop 360. In 2006 the Austin American-Statesman ran a piece “FORGOTTEN: Subdivision embraces, uses old graveyard, adding loved one's ashes” with a photo of the family beside Caroline’s tombstone. Her burial here raises the question: Why not Oak Grove with her husband? One possible explanation: Bull Creek may have been in flood stage that year. The road from the Thurm’s to Oak Grove Cemetery crosses Bull Creek 6-7 times; there were no bridges. Possibly after her death they simply could not reach Oak Grove Cemetery and opted for the Walden Cemetery which is on a high bluff out of the creek.

The old homestead, or derivative thereof, was still visible in historic aerials taken in 1967. Unfortunately, during construction of Loop 360 in the early 1970s, the historical significance of the Thurm homestead was not recognized and the property was razed.

In 1866 daughter Louise Thurm married August Waechter; the newspaper announced the marriage at the home of the bride on Bull Creek, i.e. the Thurm homestead. In a small world, I have good friends that, unbeknownst to me before researching the Thurms, have cousins descended from that union! Odd, on a quite night when I drive down to that spot on Old Spicewood Springs Road, I swear I can hear laughter from a wedding party! Ghosts on Bull Creek?

 

Photos

Photo from article "FORGOTTEN: Subdivision embraces, uses old graveyard, adding loved one's ashes", American Statesman, 2006. Tombstone of Caroline Walden.

Historic aerial of Thurm homestead as it stood in 1967 before Loop 360. The earliest aerial photo available is from Tobin Imagery of the property in 1937

Google Earth view of Thurm homestead as it looks today inside Lower Bull Creek Greenbelt

 

Married, 1866, at the residence of the brides's father on Bull Creek, Miss Louise Thurm to Mr. F.A. Waechter. The Southern Intelligencer, Austin, TX, March 1, 1866