Historical Resources of the Choke Canyon Reservoir Area in McMullen and Live Oak Counties (Part 1). Historical Archaeological Resources of the Choke Canyon Reservoir Area in McMullen and Live Oak Counties, Texas (Part 2). Choke Canyon Series: Volume 2

摘要

For the past century and a half the history of the Choke Canyon Reservoir area has illustrated the evolution of an agricultural society into a technological society. In the mid-nineteenth century, settlement of the area began on the Frio River in the vicinity of Yarbrough Bend. Early settlers eked out a meager subsistence by practicing a minimal amount of agriculture and by raising livestock. During the latter decades of the century the population slowly increased, spreading up and down the Frio River from Yarbrough Bend. By the turn of the century, a small group of interrelated families were basing their subsistence on stockraising. Early in the twentieth century, however, oil and gas discoveries began to tie the area's residents to the world of technology. Today the people living in the reservoir area still occupy themselves by raising livestock; the mainstay of the economy, however, is the extraction of petroleum and natural gas.