Texas Hill Country Mason - Mason Texas reference and information guide
 

Mason, Texas - In 1851 a small frontier fort was built by the U.S. Army on a hill overlooking what is now the small town of Mason. This fort was a base for the 2nd Cavalry in their efforts to stop Indian raids on white settlements in central Texas. Robert E. Lee was commander of Fort Mason in early 1861, when he was ordered to return to Washington shortly before the outbreak of the Civil War. Thus, the fort was Lee's last command for the Union army.

The protection and commercial possibilities of the fort drew settlers, many from the small Texas German town of Fredericksburg, forty-five miles to the southeast. Dissident German Methodists moved to the Willow Creek area east of Mason and established farms and ranches in the community later known as Art.

After the U.S. Civil War, returning Confederate veterans and German ranchers clashed over cattle rustling and other crimes. The resulting killings were known as "The HooDoo Wars," and involved several famous gunfighters. A famous local businesswoman, Anna Martin, established several successful enterprises including a still prosperous bank, and set an example of capitalist success in the county.

Fred Gipson, revered for his novels Old Yeller and its sequel Savage Sam, was a native of Mason. Both novels eventually became popular Walt Disney films. A bronze statue by Texas sculptor Garland A. Weeks depicting a boy and his dog was erected in his honor in front of the town's library.

J. Marvin Hunter (1880-1957), author, journalist, and historian of the American West, worked with his father, John Warren Hunter, at the Mason Herald newspaper in the 1890s. Hunter later founded Frontier Times magazine and Frontier Times Museum in Bandera.