The waymark coordinates are at the site of the ruins of the St. Dominic Church, the historic heart of the old town of D'Hanis.
The church is located off the US 90 on Medina Co Road 5226 at the intersection with Medina County Road 5231.
From the National Register Nomination form on file with the Texas Historical Commission: (
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"Old D'Hanis is a rural community 25 miles west of Castroville, which represents the original townsite of Henri Castro's fourth colony. Just south of Highway 90 is an area of several blocks on which are located 17 architecturally significant structures dating primarily from the mid to late 1800s, six historical buildings which have been remodeled and four modern structures. The sites of 22 historic buildings which have been destroyed in the 20th century are also included on the sketch map, in order to show the density of the original townsite. The land is basically flat and Parker's Creek meanders along the western border of the district.
Planned as a farming village, the houses were located close together on small plots. Land for farming and grazing cattle surrounded the village, and the first settlers received several acres of farming land, as well as a lot in the village for a house. Unnamed gravel roads divide the old township into a grid pattern based on that original survey.
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Old D'Hanis was the fourth colony founded by empresario, Henri Castro in Medina County. First settled in 1847, the town consisted primarily of Alsatian immigrants. The D'Hanis Historic District represents one of the best examples of an 1850-80 European colonial village in Texas, for a number of the homes built during this period, as well as the original plan of the community, remain intact with few intrusions. The railroad bypassed old D'Hanis in 1881 and established a depot about a mile from the city. Taking even the name of the old community, new D'Hanis drew the majority of the population and the commercial activity from the old townsite. The fact that the original town declined in the late 19th century accounts for the large number of extant structure, and the few intrusions. The village remains as a visual link with Medina County's l9th century colonization period.
The colonizer of Medina County, Henri de Castro, was a French citizen from the province of Alsace. In 1827 Castro came to the United States as consul for the Kingdom of Naples and was naturalized as a U.S. citizen from the province of Alsace, at Providence, Rhode Island, at that time. Fourteen years later Castro was sent to the Republic of Texas as a representative of the banking firm of Lafitte and Company of Paris. After authorizing the first empresario contract in 1841, the Texas Congress passed a general colonization law the following year authorizing other contracts. President Houston appointed Castro Consul-General from the Republic of Texas to the Kingdom of France, simultaneously granting him a colonization contract for a large tract of land situated four miles west of the Medina River. He later acquired more land within the area from private land owners. According to his contract, Castro was to introduce a colony of 600 families into this unpopulated area. Without even seeing the land, Castro returned to Europe and between 1843 and 1847 brought into his grants approximately 500 families and over 400 single men. Castro was second only to Stephen F. Austin in the number of families he brought to Texas, but only a small number of the people he brought actually took possession of their grants.
His first colony, Castroville (see National Register submission, "Castroville Historic District", April, 1970) was founded 25 miles west of San Antonio in 1844. Having established Castroville as the major colony, Castro founded Quihi (1845) and Vandenburg (1846) in the vicinity. As his dream of a circle of villages began materializing Castro turned his attention to his fourth and last colony, D'Hanis, which he located 25 miles west of Castroville. Situated on a high prairie about 2 miles east of Rio Seco on the banks of a running stream called Parker's Creek, the settlement was named in honor of Guillaume D'Hanis, a Frenchman who was manager of the colonization company in Belgium. During the winter of 1846-47 a surveying party led by artist, Theodore Gentilz, went to D'Hanis to lay out lots for the future residents.
Jean Batot and his son, Christian, soon followed the surveyors and all that spring other groups arrived from Castroville where they had been living temporarily. Only 29 families moved out to this westernmost colony, far short of Castro's expectations.
The settlers of D'Hanis and the other Castro colonies were primarily from Alsace, but also included a few people from other parts of Germany, France, and Switzerland. Both French and German traditions influenced the town plan, architecture and customs of the people. Most of the Alsatians were Frenchmen by birth, but spoke a German dialect. In 1840 Alsace was governed by the French and did not become a part of Germany until 1871. Alsace, however, had been populated by a Teutonic race since the 5th century. While the French conquests of the 17th century had altered the Teutonic influence, still the masses used the German dialect as their native tongue.
Each married man in the colony was assigned 640 acres of land and a town lot, while a single man received 320 acres. One condition of settlement, however, was that each man promised to convey to Castro one half of their land. The first year the settlers were not able to cultivate their land in time to produce crops, and a hail storm destroyed the crops their second year. The first two years were full of poverty, hunger, epidemic, and Indian harassment.
Following this initial period of hardship, however, the settlers learned to cope with their new frontier environment. Herds of cattle were noted near D'Hanis in 1849 and Frederick Law Olmsted noted on his journey through the area in 1849 that the wealth of the D'Hanis settlers lay primarily with their cattle ranching.
Periodically Texas Rangers camped within a few miles of D'Hanis to provide protection from the Indians. After the Mexican War the U.S. established a line of army posts along the border of Indian country, and in 1849 Fort Lincoln was established on the banks of the Rio Seco northwest of D'Hanis. The army post afforded military protection for the settlers of D'Hanis who lived in the domain of the Comanche Indians. At the same time the fort was a market for the colonist's agricultural products. Although Fort Lincoln was abandoned in 1851, the post was significant to D'Hanis' development.
Most of the original families were Roman Catholic, and the church, served as a unifying force of the community. One of the first enterprises was to erect a crude log structure for religious services. The first permanent structure was a two story stone building constructed in 1853 when D'Hanis became a Mission parish. In 1868 a large stone Gothic Revival church was built into the old stone church. This edifice saw continual use until 1915 when a building was constructed in new D'Hanis and the transition was made to the new parish. The ruinous structure stands today as a landmark of the 10th century community of old D'Hanis.
Education was an important aspect of the community from the beginnings. Priests and lay people shared the task of instruction in various homes or in the log church. The 1850 census lists among the D'Hanis residents a lay school teacher and 14 children between the age of 6 and 14 taking instruction. In 1870 two Sisters of Devine Providence from the convent at Castroville came to teach in D'Hanis. The first school was apparently held in a room of John Rudinger's house, but the nuns discontinued the program after a few years. However, in 1883 the nuns reopened the school at St. Dominic's and the parish provided them with a large two-story stone structure. A school in Seco settlement near the site of Fort Lincoln and a public school at old D'Hanis also operated during this period. St. Dominic's was utilized as the Catholic school until 1908."