Bulverde, Texas

Bulverde, Texas
City
Location of Bulverde, Texas
Country	United States
State	Texas
County	Comal
Area
• Total	7.6 sq mi (19.7 km2)
• Land	7.6 sq mi (19.7 km2)
• Water	0.0 sq mi (0.0 km2)
Elevation	1,093 ft (333 m)
Population  (2000)
• Total	3,761
• Density	495.7/sq mi (191.4/km2)
Time zone	UTC-6 (Central (CST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP code	78163
Area code	830
FIPS code	48-11224Template:GR
GNIS feature ID	1378070Template:GR
Website	Official website

Bulverde is a city in Comal County, Texas, United States. The population was 4,630 at the 2010 census. It is part of the San Antonio Metropolitan Statistical Area.

Geography

Bulverde is located at 29°44′55″N 98°24′48″WTemplate:GR, about 23 miles (37 km) north of Downtown San Antonio.

According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of 7.6 square miles (20 km²), all of it land.

Demographics

As of the censusTemplate:GR of 2000, there were 3,761 people, 1,292 households, and 1,131 families residing in the city. The population density was 495.7 people per square mile (191.3/km²). There were 1,349 housing units at an average density of 177.8 per square mile (68.6/km²). The racial makeup of the city was 95.32% White, 0.32% African American, 0.32% Native American, 0.51% Asian, 0.03% Pacific Islander, 1.81% from other races, and 1.70% from two or more races. Hispanic or Latino of any race were 10.95% of the population.

There were 1,292 households out of which 41.6% had children under the age of 18 living with them, 79.6% were married couples living together, 5.7% had a female householder with no husband present, and 12.4% were non-families. 10.1% of all households were made up of individuals and 3.6% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older. The average household size was 2.91 and the average family size was 3.12.

In the city the population was spread out with 28.3% under the age of 18, 5.2% from 18 to 24, 27.7% from 25 to 44, 29.2% from 45 to 64, and 9.6% who were 65 years of age or older. The median age was 40 years. For every 100 females there were 101.3 males. For every 100 females age 18 and over, there were 96.4 males.

The median income for a household in the city was $67,055, and the median income for a family was $68,019. Males had a median income of $49,245 versus $30,717 for females. The per capita income for the city was $26,887. About 1.5% of families and 2.3% of the population were below the poverty line, including none of those under the age of eighteen or sixty-five or over.

History

Bulverde's first people were Native Americans. A type of arrowhead known as the Bulverde Point is named after the style of arrowhead made by Native Americans who lived in the area during the period 2,500 to 600 B.C.

Bulverde was settled in 1850 and called Pieper Settlement, after Anton Pieper. For many years the closest post office was at Smithson Valley, and mail was delivered once a week to the house of Carl Koch in Bulverde. A local post office that operated from 1879 to 1919 was named for Luciano Bulverdo, an early area landowner.

Many residents of early Bulverde were immigrants or direct descendants of the German immigrants that had settled much of the Texas Hill Country. In the 1950s and as recently as the 1970s, many if not most of the residents carried German surnames (such as Siedel (meaning beer mug in German) and Saur (meaning soil)). Major changes came to the region when Interstate Highway 35 was built and Canyon Lake was created. Both of these brought new residents, and another wave of settlers came to Bulverde.

The area surrounding Bulverde was once made up of huge ranches. In the early 1970s, the first subdivisions of ranch land in Bulverde resulted in neighborhoods such as Bulverde Hills and Oak Village North. These were predecessors to numerous other subdivisions that would, by the 2000s, turn Bulverde into a suburb of San Antonio. In the mid-2000s, the final large ranch in the Bulverde area, the Johnson Ranch, was sold. The plans for Johnson Ranch call for the first large master-planned community in the area offering the cluster development concept which will provide much greater open space and allow for centralized water and wastewater systems, rather than the environmentally less friendly well and septic systems which are used in all of the older, neighboring residential developments around Bulverde. Whether these features mitigate higher traffic and increased pollution that will result from thousands of cars on an already overcrowded area road system remains to be seen.

Education

The City of Bulverde is served by the Comal Independent School District.

Throughout the 1980s and as of 2007, the children of Bulverde fed into Smithson Valley High School. The sports teams from the high school regularly advance to compete at state championship levels.

There is also Bracken Christian School, a k4-12th school that sits on a hilltop.

Newspapers

The Bulverde Bul-a-ton was published in the mid-1980s using an Osborne 1 microcomputer. The publisher was Betty Baker. The offices were located due East of the Justice of the Peace's office for Pct. 3 Comal County. The airport was West of the offices. Wood's store, later Spec's store was north of the offices.

The Bulverde Standard was in circulation from the mid-1980s until 1996.

The Bulverde Community News founded in 1994 by Bob Welch (Publisher) and Julia Welch (Managing Editor) exerted dominance in local news coverage and became the official paper of record for the newly formed City of Bulverde. Mr. and Mrs. Welch sold the Bulverde Community News to Prime Time Newspapers (a subsidiary of Clear Channel Communications) in September 1998.

Notable natives

• Augie Meyers — musician and singer, former member of Sir Douglas Quintet, and Texas Tornados.
• 1945 Heisman Trophy winner, "Mr. Inside" Felix "Doc" Blanchard died of pneumonia on April 19, 2009 in Bulverde.
• Jason LaRue - MLB Baseball Player.

External links

• Bulverde from the Handbook of Texas Online