Kerrville: Mohair Capital of the World

Joshua Brown came to the Guadalupe River to make cedar shingles, and his shinglemakers' camp grew into a settlement. Brown donated land for a town and named it after his friend James Kerr, a Texas Revolution veteran. The town was platted after Kerr County was organized in eighteen fifty-six, and its claim as county seat was shaky until eighteen sixty-two.

What made the town famous, though, was not cedar but fiber. The Hill Country turned out to be ideal for sheep and Angora goats, and Kerrville became the hub of a regional industry that put the town on the map. Charles Schreiner, a merchant and rancher who arrived after the Civil War, built a wool and mohair trading empire here that financed much of the county's development.