The Headwaters: San Marcos Springs & the River

The water rising out of the ground at San Marcos has been drawing people to this spot for something like eleven thousand years — one of the oldest continuously inhabited sites in North America. Ice-Age hunters left spearpoints in the mud here; Spanish missionaries and Anglo settlers built along the same clear pools; and in the twentieth century tourists rode glass-bottom boats over the springs to watch Ralph the Swimming Pig dive into water so transparent it looks like nothing at all. This drive follows the whole story of that water — the sacred springhead, the amusement-park-turned-research-center that grew over it, the federal fish hatchery it fed, an earthquake-cracked dry cave, and the smaller springs and river islands downstream. It's the natural crown jewel of the Austin metro, and it starts where the water starts.