Founded in 1883 along the Pedernales River in Texas Hill Country, the town of Footnote earned its name entirely by clerical accident.
Originally intended to be called Ferdinand after its founder, surveyor Ferdinand Sage, an asterick on the original county charter map read: “Town site subject to flooding.”
When state cartographers in Austin processed the land deed, they accidentally registered the settlement as Footnote. By the time the mistake was noticed, the local postmaster had already painted the town sign, and no one felt like paying four dollars for an official name change.
The town grew slowly at first, just another stagecoach stop in the sprawling Texas Hill Country.
In 1898 that changed when The San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railway built a track towards Footnote. Unfortunately they missed the town because the land surveyor’s compass was affected by his iron belt buckle. This resulted in passengers having to walk two miles from the station to town.
In the early twenties the town attempted to alleviate the problem by building the World’s first horse-drawn monorail system. The idea was to present nice views of the surrounding landscape as riders approached town but the height of the tracks spooked many of the horses and was soon discontinued. Remnants of the old monorail tracks can still be seen along with the graves of the horses who died in its service. Nobody said it was going to be a happy story.