The Blanco River, birthed from the Texas Hill Country as spring water, has been a witness to varied forms of life and cultures, from oyster reefs to prehistoric dinosaurs, archaic cultures living with stone age tools progressing to historic native Americans, early Europeans like the Spanish conquistadores and explorers, expeditions and natural resource surveys, pathfinders searching for favorable travel routes between Spanish province capitals. Then the filibusters, adventurers, Spanish land grant colonists, revolutionists, and finally, pioneer families came by sail boat, ox cart and wagon to build a new life in a new land rich in natural resources. And the river's shadows, reflections of all these.