The Mystery of the Rock Wall

In the early 1850s, settlers digging for water near here struck something strange: a long line of regularly stacked stone, buried deep underground, that looked unsettlingly like a man-made wall. The discovery gave both the town and the county their name, and it started an argument that has never really ended. Is the rock wall a natural geological formation, the kind of fractured, jointed sandstone that can mimic masonry, or is it the work of some ancient people lost to record? Geologists have come down firmly on the side of nature; a stubborn band of believers has never been convinced. This driving tour frames the legend with the places that keep it: the site where the wall is said to surface, the county museum that lays out the evidence, the Republic-era road that crossed this ground, and the pioneer cemetery where the first namers of Rockwall now rest. Come decide for yourself.