VERDINA, TEXAS. Verdina is fourteen miles northeast of Hondo in north central Medina County. Its name was probably adapted from that of nearby Verde Creek. Community members built a schoolhouse on land owned by Henry Saathoff and organized the Verdina school district in October 1903. The post office opened in 1908, with Otto Henry Brucks as postmaster. Around 1919 a modern schoolhouse was built on property owned by John G. Brucks on the Bandera road. In the mid-1920s area ranchers raised cattle, goats, hogs, and turkeys. The Verdina Card Club, organized in 1939, held regular monthly card parties-complete with barbecue and ice cream-at the schoolhouse until as recently as 1983. The town hall was all that remained of Verdina 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