BLANCONIA, TEXAS. Blanconia is on State Highway 202 twenty-two miles southeast of Beeville in southeastern Bee County. The town was established in 1834 when John and Michael Keeting acquired a half league of land from the state of Coahuila and Texas.^qv This land was in Refugio County until Bee County was established in 1857. In the beginning the town was named Kymo and had nicknames including Pull Tight and Dark Corners. In 1888, when Tom McGuill applied for a post office, the town was renamed Blanconia, after Blanco Creek. The community post office was established in 1888 and discontinued sometime after 1930. Many of the earliest settlers at the townsite came from Refugio and Goliad when Texas was still part of Mexico. One settler, Sally Scull,^qv eventually became a famous "pistol-totin' horse trader." In 1855 a local Baptist church was established and named N-2, after L. R. McDaniel's cattle brand. In 1905 Blanconia had a one-teacher school with twelve pupils. By 1914 the town had its largest recorded population, 200, and was a thriving trade center with three stores and three churches. The community had twenty-five residents and one store during the early 1930s. All that remained at the site by the late 1950s was the N-2 Church, McGuill's store, and St. Catherine's Church. In 1968 the community's population was fifteen, and no businesses were reported there. The population was still reported as fifteen in the early 1990s, but increased to thirty by 2000.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: Grace Bauer, Bee County Centennial, 1858-1958 (Bee County Centennial, 1958). Camp Ezell, Historical Story of Bee County, Texas (Beeville: Beeville Publishing, 1973).

Rebecca Leigh Kendall