VOGT-WOOLFORD
Hwy. 474

Moonshine Valley

1995

HISTORY: Sam Woolford combined two ranches to form his idyllic homeplace which he called Moonshine Valley. Combining the August Vogt 160 acres and Franz Boehm 152.2 acres, Moonshine Valley contains 312.2 acres.

From about 1850 until 1977 some fifty additions and improvements were made. There were added four log rooms, two outside stairways. To the ranch were added two stone corrals, one sugar mill with treadway, one stone smokehouse, three small gardens, one school house site, one pioneer house complete log room which was moved to the main house and incorporated into a bedroom with a heat-o- later fireplace. There was one underground room, beneath the floor of the main house, available as a hiding place via a trap door in the bedroom.

On the grounds are two earthen tanks, one with a two acre lake when full, the other a smaller tank uphill from the main house about one hundred yards. There are three wells (two at the springs), one in the yard which is a four foot hand-dug through rock 60 feet). There is one elevated tank for pressure, one wind mill, one orchard, one concrete slab for chicken house, three chimneys, one back step, three front steps, two Indian mounds, one cemetery and one rock quarry with flagstones.

Many admirers clipped Sam Woolford's column from the San Antonio Light for years. The twenty- seven years of articles were placed into a book called "Tales from Moonshine Valley". It was in 1919 that Sam Woolford began his association with the San Antonio newspaper. His wife, Bess, was also a writer for the newspaper.

Source: Boerne Public Library files; From article by Garland Perry in Boerne Star- March, 2000.

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