Boerne Star
A Cibola Was a Buffalo Hunter
By Jan Wrede
The Cibolo Center for Conservation and the Boerne community have experienced significant growth in recent years. In the spirit of honoring those who paved the way, please enjoy this heritage article originally published on June 8, 1994.
At least three streams in Texas are called Cibolo Creek. Our Cibolo, whose source is in Kendall County, being ninety miles long and a major tributary for the San Antonio River, is clearly the most significant.
The other two Cibolo Creeks are intermittent streams, one in Duval and the other in Presidio County. I’ve often wondered about the origin of the word Cibolo. One common explanation has been the Spanish name or onion-cebolla; however, according to an early account of Native Americans by F.W. Hodges Cibola was a Native American and Spanish term for buffalo hunting Indians. Thus, it seems fair to assume that Cibolo came originally from a Native American language, was absorbed into Spanish by early explorers, and may very well be the source of the name Cibolo Creek.
Perhaps the earliest name for the Cibolo Creek of south-central Texas was Xolotan used by the Coahuiltecan or Coniquiyoqui given by the Tonkawans. I’d like to know the meaning and how to pronounce both of these names. Several Spanish Explorers on expeditions in 1691 and 1716 named our streams for three different saints – Crecencia, Ignacio and Xaivier. Since 1721, however, our river has been known as the Cibolo.
Kendall County’s Cibolo Creek is a tranquil stream often lined with bald cypress, pecan or elm trees. As it runs through the Cibolo Wilderness, the creek bed is a flat place with some deep holes and is littered with giant cypress awash in clear water running between and around massive trunks and roots. Here is a haven from the heavy heat of the summer or wicked winds of the winter. This, the upper Cibolo, is fed along its length by intermittent springs. Much of the water of the Cibolo goes subsurface as it flows further downstream. The middle Cibolo continues through Fair Oaks Ranch and is a dry limestone creek bed carved by water flowing only after heavy rains. The entire middle section belongs to the recharge zone. Water that runs here during and after storms falls through cracks in the creek bottom. None of it reaches the lower Cibolo, which is fed by other streams as it passes to the east of San Antonio and, finally empties into the San Antonio River about five miles north of Karnes City.
Imagine, 272 years ago, the Cibolo Creek that runs right through the idle of downtown Boerne, was named for Native American buffalo hunters! And now who hunts along the Cibolo? Children, looking for fresh fish or pretty shells or cool summer adventure. Surely, the spirits of the past remain to inspire imagination.