Historic Attractions

Katherine Ann Porter House

The is the childhood home of Katherine Ann Porter, one of the most outstanding American women authors. At the age of two, her mother died and the family came to Kyle to live with her grandmother who they affectionately called "Aunt Kat". At age six, Katherine Ann wrote her first novel. At 71, she wrote her second novel which earned a million dollars, The Pulitzer Prize, and worldwide recognition. She placed the locale of seven of her award winning short stories around Kyle. She died at the age of 90. In 2000, the building was given a face-lift, and a museum and write in residence was added.

Kyle Hanging Tree

Sometime in the late 1840s cowboys from the Kyle ranch were rounding up stray cattle when they discovered a man’s body hanging from a limb of a large live oak tree. Not knowing his identity, they cut the body down and buried it beneath the tree in an unmarked grave. In the book Famous Tree of Texas there is a picture and story of this tree, which became known as the “hanging tree”. The tree is located in the Kyle Cemetary, and marked the first grave to be put there

Cemeteries

The Kyle cemetery was used as a community burial ground many years before the founding of the town in 1880. It is currently the oldest burial ground still in use in Hays County. In 1853, Colonel Kyle and his wife Lucy Bugg Kyle donated 15 acres surrounding a large oak tree.

Claiborne Kyle Log House

The Claiborne Kyle Log House was built in 1850 by slave labor for Claiborne and Lucy Bugg Kyle and their nine children.

Kyle was a Senator in Mississippi. He went on the bond of an old friend, Robert Graves, the State Treasurer, who was accused of embezzlement. A short time later Graves disappeared and the forfeiture of the bond was so financially disastrous to Kyle that he sold his remaining property and came to Texas. The story goes that he told his slaves, some of whom had been sold, that he was leaving early the next morning and anyone who wanted to go with him to Texas to be at the dock. An undisclosed number of slaves came with the Kyle family.

The log house is built of cedar logs, square notched at the corners and secured by wooden pegs. Alternate courses of log and rock grouting and caliche were used. The 10 by 6 dogtrot opens between two double room sections; a huge stone fireplace divides the rooms of each section. The Kyle house is a most unusual type known as the "linear four-pen dog trot". It is listed in the Terry Jordan book Texas Log Cabins and a picture and story appears in the book Nineteenth Century Homes.

The Austin-San Antonio Stagecoach passed in front of the Kyle home so Colonel Kyle kept up his political activities. He was a member of the Texas Legislature serving in the Fifth Senate and the Tenth and Eleventh House. From the Kyle Log House, five sons went to war in 1861 to serve the Confederate cause with the Terry Texas Rangers. Four of the men served under their brother, Captain Fergus Kyle. Each day their mother went to a spring a short distance from the house and prayed for their safe return. All five brothers returned home, but their mother died June 6, 1863.

On September 22, 1980, the Blanco River Bluffs, Inc. deeded the Kyle Log House to Hays County. A Claiborne Kyle Log House Commission was appointed to direct the restoration and maintenance of the house.

On May 28, 1981, the Claiborne Kyle Log House was placed on the National Register of Historic Places. A Texas Historical Marker was dedicated in 1982.

Kyle Auction Oak

The Auction Oak is the name given to this beautiful tree by Ann Miller Storm when the author of Famous Tress of Texas asked her about famous trees in Kyle. It was under this tree that the auction of town lots was held in 1880. An official Texas Historical Marker was dedicated in 1975. The Auction Oak is on the East side of four city blocks deeded by the railroad for a school.

Fergus Kyle Tombstone

This is the headstone of Fergus Kyle and his wife. The city was named for Fergus due to the large amount of land donated for a town site in 1880 when the rail route between Austin and San Antonio was laid.

Kyle is located within miles of 6 of the Top 10 Natural Attractions in Texas.

Natural Attractions of Texas Hill Country

• Enchanted Rock – Fredricksburg, Tx
• Lost Maples – Vanderpool, Tx
• Longhorn Caverns – Burnet, Texas
• Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center – Austin, Tx
• Inner Space Cavern – Georgetown, Tx
• Cascade Caverns – Boerne, Tx
• Natural Bridge Caverns – Natural Bridge Caverns, Tx
• Wonder World – San Marcos, Tx
• Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch – San Antonio, Tx
• Barton Springs – Austin, Tx

Interesting Facts

Noteworthy citizens of Kyle

 

• W.W. Haupt – developer of Haupt Berry
• Terrell Sledge – Rhodes Scholar
• Cecil Hughson – former Boston Red Sox pitcher
• Dean Edwin J. Kyle – former Texas A&M professor and man for whom Kyle Field (College Station, Tx) is named
• Katherine Ann Porter – great American female writer and Pulitzer Prize winner

From 1943 to 1946, Kyle had an “all-woman” government