This reconstructed stage stop building, originally built in the 1850s stands along the historic Evans Road, part of the Harrison and McCulloch stage route that passed through this area.
The stage stop also served as a US Post Office. It was reconstructed by the Texas historical commission using period-appropriate materials and techniques in 2006.
The TX state historical marker reads as follows:
"HARRISON AND McCULLOCH STAGE STOP
The Harrison and McCulloch Stage Line began running stagecoaches from the Texas coast to Central Texas as early as 1848. The line was a partnership between brothers-in-law, John S. Harrison (1818-1864) and William McCulloch (1819-c. 1854), after dissolving their partnership with Dr. Caleb S. Brown of Gonzales (Harrison & Brown Stage Line) in 1850. Their stage line was part of a network of competing stage lines and "star routes" that contracted with the United States Post Office delivering travelers and mail throughout central Texas. Star routes 6285, 6154 and 6155 ran from Indianola, Port Lavaca and Galveston to New Braunfels and Austin and back. John S. Harrison also owned the Victoria Hotel in Victoria where he housed his stage passengers overnight on their way inland. In 1852, Harrison moved to Selma, making it his home. His house was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2006 and declared a State Archeological Landmark in 2009. Harrison was the first postmaster of Selma and held that position for two years.
The Selma Stage Stop, as it is known today, was one of the stops on Harrison & McCulloch's Star Route 6285 that ran from Austin to San Antonio. In 1852, the route took 18 hours to complete, leaving Austin at 3 AM traveling the Old Post Road and sections of El Camino Real de los Tejas through the open prairie to Manchac Spring, San Marcos, Bonito, New Braunfels and Selma, arriving in San Antonio at 9 PM that night. The Selma, Stage Stop is a prime example of "limecrete construction," a process using wooden forms and "slip," a mixture made from sand and pebbles found in the nearby Rio Cibolo. Shards of wood and corncobs were forced into the drying slip for added strength. (2012)"
A more detailed biography of John H. Harrison is found on the Handbook of Texas online: (
visit link)
"Harrison, John Sobiesky Koontz (1818–1864)
HARRISON, JOHN SOBIESKY KOONTZ (1818–1864).John Sobiesky Koontz Harrison, partner in the Harrison & McCulloch Stage Lines which ran from Indianola and Galveston to Central Texas as far back as the mid-1840s, was born on August 20, 1818, in Kingston, Roane County, Tennessee. His parents were Dr. Benjamin and Elizabeth (Koontz) Harrison. His grandfather, John Koontz, was a former member of the Virginia House of Delegates and had served as a colonel in the War of 1812. His father died when he was five years old, and, with his mother and his siblings, Harrison moved to La Porte County, Indiana, in 1833. His mother remained in Indiana and was listed as a hotel keeper in the 1850 census of Porter County.
John S. Harrison probably arrived in Texas around 1836. His two older brothers, Achilles Leonidas and Erasmus Darwin Harrison had left for Texas sometime before John. Erasmus served with James W. Fannin, Jr., and was killed at the Goliad Massacre in March 1836. John’s oldest brother, Achilles, a second lieutenant in the Army of the Republic of Texas, died in the Houston area about 1840. John Harrison served in Captain Burnett’s Company, First Regiment, First Brigade, in the Texas Army Volunteers, commanded by Col. Edwin Morehouse, through the year 1836.
In 1839 Harrison resided in Fort Bend County and received a second class certificate for 320 acres. On October 31, 1845, he filed a petition with the probate court at Conroe, Montgomery County, Texas for the estates of his brothers. Erasmus Harrison had received 640 acres in Donation Land Certificate #786 dated January 28, 1839, and 1,920 acres for service from December 25, 1835, to March 27, 1836, in Bounty Land Warrant #707.
John Harrison married Martha Jane E. McCulloch Graves. She was born on September 8, 1828, in Alabama and was the daughter of William G. and Margery (Lee) McCulloch. Martha Jane had a daughter from her first marriage, and the Harrisons eventually had four children of their own.
John went into the stage line business with his brother-in-law, William H. McCulloch, Martha Jane’s older brother, and formed the Harrison & McCulloch Stage Line. By 1848 the Harrisons possibly lived in Victoria, Texas, as John Harrison advertised his operation of the Victoria Hotel on May 4, 1848, and was noted as “one of the proprietors of the San Antonio and Port Lavaca Stage Line.” In November 1848 Harrison & McCulloch advertised the newly-established “Line of Stages” from Indian Point to Victoria. In 1849 Harrison was also in partnership with Dr. Caleb S. Brown out of Gonzales, Texas, as Harrison & Brown, and advertised a stage line between San Antonio and Port Lavaca (probably the same line that he promoted as proprietor of the Victoria Hotel). They dissolved their partnership, however, on June 17, 1850.
Harrison & McCulloch began their third postal route in New Braunfels, Comal County, Texas, by 1851; the United States Post Office had awarded them the contract for Route 6285 on May 11, 1850. This route, combined with their other two routes 6154 and 6155, made up a continuous loop through the central “heart” of Texas—from Austin to San Antonio to Port Lavaca back up through Victoria to Gonzales and back to New Braunfels. The Harrison family was listed in the 1850 Comal County census records and lived in the New Braunfels area.
In 1852 the Harrisons moved from New Braunfels to Cibolo (later to be renamed Selma) and bought a 127-acre farm from sections of properties owned by Johannes Kaderli, Henry Kempel, and Adam Wuest. Harrison established Selma’s first post office when he became the postmaster on June 21, 1852, and served a two-year term until July 15, 1854. He and his family moved from Selma, and they sold their farm to Wilhelm Geier and Martin Schmid in 1854. By 1858 they were living in Pleasanton, Atascosa County, Texas, where Harrison was listed in the 1860 census records as a “stockraiser.” In 1861 he was a private in the command of Capt. Edward Walker of the Mounted Minutemen of Atascosa County where he enlisted in the Confederate Army on May 7, 1861. He and Martha later moved to Bell County where they purchased 105 acres on September 19, 1863. For unknown reasons, John Harrison died about a year later on December 31, 1864, in Waco.
The Harrison & McCulloch Stage Stop which sits on the access road along Interstate 35 at Evans Road in Selma, Texas, northeast of San Antonio, was declared a State Archeological Landmark by the Texas Historical Commission in October 2000. John S. Harrison’s home, built in 1852 in Selma, was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in June 2006 and is currently owned by the city of Selma. In April 2009 the house was listed as a State Archeological Landmark by the Texas Historical Commission in an effort to save it and the history it represents for future generations."