Blanco Daniel Rawls Log Church Pioneer Strongbox — Blanco County

In 1854 circuit rider Daniel Rawls organized a Methodist church in a log cabin built to withstand Indian raids; the structure also served as a school. That same year the Pittsburg Land Company laid out Pittsburg across the Blanco River while James Hughes Callahan and Eli Clemens Hinds built the first permanent Anglo homes on the river. Frontier-church folklore sometimes places settler specie in or near fortified meetinghouses where families stored valuables while Comanche and Lipan Apache bands still claimed the Hill Country. The Twin Sisters Masonic Lodge later moved from Curry's Creek to Pittsburg around 1857. Coordinates mark downtown Blanco on the north bank of the Blanco River, twelve miles south of Johnson City on US Highway 281.