Buda: Stagecoach Stop on Onion Creek

Buda grew up where two kinds of road crossed. Long before the railroad arrived in 1880, stagecoaches on the old San Antonio-to-Austin route forded Onion Creek here and paused at a stone stage stop for water and rest. When the International-Great Northern laid its tracks, a proper depot town took shape around them, and a walkable Main Street of stone and brick followed. This drive visits the townsite marker, the surviving Stagecoach House that once doubled as the Onion Creek post office, and the churches and school that filled out community life — and it makes room for the Antioch Colony, a settlement that families freed from slavery built for themselves just west of town after emancipation. Together they tell the fuller story of how this small Hays County town came to be.