MURPHY, TEXAS (Medina County). Murphy was a farming community on the Old Spanish Trail near the Dunlay oilfield, a mile east of Hondo Creek and six miles southeast of Hondo in central Medina County. The farmland around Murphy was described as composed of very good black soil. Most of the farm work was done by Mexican tenants. In 1907 sixteen students attended the one-teacher Murphy School; the schoolhouse was a one-room frame structure. The Murphy School was consolidated with the Hondo Independent School District in 1947. The school building served as a community center in 1987.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Castro Colonies Heritage Association, The History of Medina County, Texas (Dallas: National Share Graphics, 1983). Houston B. Eggen, History of Public Education in Medina County, Texas, 1848-1928 (M.A. thesis, University of Texas, 1950).

Ruben E. Ochoa