Austin.YNN.com

Austin / Round Rock / San Marcos

Change region

  91º

You are not signed in  |  Sign in here  |  Help

You're viewing a lite version of ynn.com

Time Warner Cable customers: Sign in with your TWC ID for video access.

Get my TWC ID. | Get TWC service. | Read the FAQ.

YNN’s Russell Wilde is Wilde about Texas. Join Russell each Thursday as he travels throughout the state visiting the people and places that make Texas unique. Do you have an idea for our next Wilde About Texas? Send it to us by clicking here.



09/20/2012 02:31 PM

Wilde About Texas: Pioneer legacy preserved in Dripping Springs

  To view our videos, you need to
enable JavaScript. Learn how.
install Adobe Flash 9 or above. Install now.

Then come back here and refresh the page.


In the early 1850s, a handful of families settled in what is now known as Dripping Springs.

Dr. Joseph Pound and his wife Sarah started their life in the Texas Hill Country in a one-room log cabin, but nine children necessitated several expansions. Today, the home gives visitors a glimpse into the area's not-so-distant pioneer past.

"The house was here just as it is. We restored it very close to what it was like when it was originally a house," Dr. Pound Historical Farmstead spokesperson Marianne Simmons said. "To live in a one-room cabin where you cooked in the fireplace, you ate in the corner at the table and you slept over here on the bed."

Most of the items in the home-turned-museum are original. Everything from the dishes to the pillow cases were used by the Pound family, one of the area's first doctors.

"[There are] A lot of very special medical implements and artifacts and tools that were used by Dr. Pound," Simmons said.

The home also features a kind of rainwater collection system that kept the family from taking extra trips to the well.

"Mrs. Pound was able to retrieve freshwater from this cistern without having to go outside," she said.

The Pound family lived conservatively on what their land would provide. Now, the Pound farmstead serves as a reminder of how much can change in 160 years.

"Pioneers had to raise a garden. They had to chop wood and carry water, and they had to use the resources they had at hand," Simmons said. "This is how the people that came before us lived. They get to see how a pioneer family lived in this area and survived not that long ago."

You can learn more about the Pound's and their home by clicking here.

The grounds of the historic home will come alive with period era demonstrations and exhibits this Saturday. The annual Pioneer Day Fall Fest is a fundraiser to support the museum.