Sutherland Springs, Texas

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Sutherland Springs is a town located on the old Spanish land grant of Manuel Tarin. It is on U.S. Highway 87 at the intersection with Farm Road 539, about twenty one miles east of San Antonio in northern Wilson County. Old Sutherland Springs occupies a portion of the South bank of the Cibolo Creek, with New Sutherland Springs (which is mostly in ruins) on the north bank of the Cibolo Creek. In 1854 the town was named for Dr. John Sutherland, Dr. Sutherland had settled there in 1849 and opened a stage stop and post office in his home in 1851. By 1860 the settlement had a diverse population mostly employed in agriculture. The wagon trade along the Goliad Trace and Chihuahua Road that intersected in town and a steady tourist enterprise focusing on the hot Sulfur Springs located nearby. A church and school met in a small rock building by the river. The legislature designated Sutherland Springs as the provisional county seat of the new Wilson County in 1860, but after the Civil War the voters selected Floresville as the permanent seat, starting a bitter controversy. The first Wilson County newspaper, the Western Chronicle, began publication there in 1877. By 1885 the population was almost 150. Tourism increased with the construction of the San Antonio and Gulf Shore Railway on the east bank of Cibolo Creek by 1895. The Sutherland Springs Development Corporation, after many years of legal suits, surveyed New Sutherland Springs near the Sunshine Depot in 1910, and most businesses in the old town moved to the new site. Patrons from all over the United States and several foreign countries regularly visited the "Saratoga of the South," staying at the fifty-two-room Hotel Sutherland and other lesser enterprises and reading the weekly newspaper, entitled the Health Resort. A disastrous flood in October 1913 destroyed the pools and bathing pavilions, and although Thomas Williams purchased and rebuilt much of the resort, tourism never recovered, and the Hotel Sutherland closed for good in 1923. After the completion of U.S. Highway 87, most businesses returned to the original site, and by 1940 new Sutherland Springs was deserted. By 1990 only a few concrete ruins remained. The Southern Pacific Railroad abandoned the route in 1971. The population declined steadily from 400 in 1920 to 114 in 1980. By 1987, however, it had risen to 362. In 1990 the population of Sutherland Springs was 362.