Story by Carmen Eastman
December 2006

My favorite family story involves the cottage in the back yard of a home in Trophy Oaks Estates. When one of the new streets was first built, I took my father, Benjamin Robert Wahl, to see the new subdivision. We drove up to the end of a road looked east across the wooded area. My father said, "...and to think - my grandfather paid for this land twice!"

"Daddy", I said, "I've never heard that story before."

He replied, "After my grandfather (Phillip) had built the rock house, he was out building a fence when he was approached by a man on horseback who said, 'what are you doing? building a fence on my land?'"

"It's my land, I paid for it," Phillip said. And indeed, he had paid for it - to a swindler. The man on horseback represented a lady in New Orleans. She was, fortunately, willing to sell.

The last time I visited in one of the nearby homes, I noticed a portion of a rock wall still standing near their front porch. I assumed it was part of the fence that Great Grandfather Phillip was building.

Carmen Wahl Eastman
Age 85

Links of Interest:

Bracken Cave
Bracken Methodist Church
Boy Scouts
City of Garden Ridge
Covenant Baptist Church 
CYO Youth Sports
Garden Ridge
Bracken Lions Club
Natural Bridge Caverns
Natural Bridge Wildlife Ranch
Northeast Bible Church
OLPH Catholic Church
Triumphant Lutheran Church

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