Last week, while housesitting for my wife’s friends who live near Helotes, I thought I’d make a quick trip up Interstate 10 to Boerne to check out the city’s small network of public trails.
The fast-growing town, with a population that’s expected to spike 24% between 2021 and 2026, now has three distinct pathways — the 1.75-mile Cibolo Creek Trail, the 1.4-mile Old No. 9 Trail and the 0.5-mile Currey Trail. This doesn’t include the six miles of trails at the Cibolo Nature Center, a private preserve adjacent to Boerne’s City Park, which deserves its own post.
I started my tour of the three trails at Boerne’s City Park. One experience left me appreciating the character of the good people of Boerne. Before starting my ride, I accidentally left my nice bike gloves on a bench in the park. They sat there for an hour in full public view but were still on the bench when I got back.
I began my ride with the Cibolo Creek Trail that leaves City Park and crosses through the Boerne AgriCultural Museum and Arts Center. The trail then dipped down toward the creek, which had a decent amount of water after recent rains. This 0.3-mile stretch ends at the intersection of River Road and Herrff Road — an area of the Cibolo apparently known as Sheep Dip Crossing in honor of some local ranchers who struggled all day to get a flock across the low-flowing creek back in 1932.
Boerne city trails
Offers: Walking, running, biking
Location: Multiple access points in Boerne, see city trails page here
Trail miles: 3.65 miles of paved trail
Restrooms: Restrooms and drinking water at City Park, Main Plaza, and Northside Neighborhood Park. Water fountains at multiple locations along all three trails.
This kind of small-town lore is memorialized along Boerne’s trails in the form of interpretive signs with old photos and historical accounts in intricate detail. The sign about Sheep Dip Crossing even includes a lengthy direct quote from one of the shepherds, written in his own vernacular – “They wuz gonna push ‘em across the Cibolo (pronounced ‘SEE blow’).” As a history nerd, this kind of thing appeals to me, though stopping to read the signs makes for a slow bike ride.
From Sheep Dip Crossing heading west, the Cibolo Creek Trail is simply a sidewalk along River Road for 0.4 miles. It began to feel like a trail again at River Road Park, where a low dam across Cibolo Creek forms a small lake near downtown. A sign in the area explains how a German immigrant named William Dietert was the first to dam the Cibolo Creek in 1856, using the power of the flowing water to grind grain in a gristmill. Dieter’s original home still stands nearby.
Nowadays, the park is clearly a pleasant place for people to gather after work, even in the summer heat. I passed plenty of people strolling or sitting along the creek as the sun began to dip low, its golden light tinting the trees and reflecting off the water. With native trees and shrubs lining the creek and a lack of litter, I appreciated how healthy Cibolo Creek looks even in downtown Boerne when compared to some of San Antonio’s urban waterways.
For its remaining mile, the Cibolo Creek Trail stays off the road and parallels its namesake creek, meandering past metal piers and benches in River Road Park and crossing under South Main Street, West Theissen Street, and West San Antonio Avenue. The trail segment ends next to Peggy’s On the Green, a popular restaurant on Boerne’s Main Plaza.
From there, I rode west on Blanco Road until connecting with the Old No. 9 Trail, a 1.4-mile paved path that cuts a perfectly straight diagonal line through the city from Esser Road to Garden Street, plus a connector trail and bridge to the Patrick Heath Public Library near Boerne’s new City Hall. I biked up to the Garden Street entrance and turned around to ride the full trail.
The straight, flat path cuts behind neighborhoods and attracts many walkers, runners and bikers. A doe and her two fawns grazed along the path, darting back into tree cover whenever trail visitors got close.
The Old No. 9 had more historical signs detailing the city’s transportation history. Apparently, the old rail route from San Antonio to Boerne followed a Native American footpath known as the Pinta Trail, which settlers later used as a wagon route. Portions of the route became a railway, then a highway, then an unused highway as the local road network grew. The city acquired a portion of abandoned railway in the 1970s and dubbed the trail Old No. 9 as “a symbolic way to remember the evolution of transportation throughout the Boerne area.”
I pulled my bike over to more closely inspect one sign informing people about a new preserve planned on 13 acres on either side of the Old No. 9 Trail behind the library. There, the City of Boerne, the local chapter of the Native Plant Society of Texas, and the Hill Country Chapter of the Texas Master Naturalists are working together to remove invasive plants and reintroduce native plants to create a wildlife corridor, with space for hiking and birdwatching.
After ending at the trailhead at Esser Road, I headed up Blanco Road to connect to the Currey Trail. There were no sidewalks or bike lanes along Blanco, leaving me riding in traffic. Fortunately, the city’s parks master plan adopted in 2022 includes extending the Currey Trail from Blanco Road to the Old No. 9 Trail as a “priority project.”
I got on the Currey Trail at its southernmost point, a nondescript path that ends at Chaparral Creek Drive. I rode past small clusters of trees and meadows with blooming wildflowers before ending at Northside Neighborhood Park. From there, I turned back around and headed back to Blanco Road to connect back with Old No. 9, which took me most of the way back to City Park.
I look forward to seeing how Boerne expands its trails over the coming years. Another priority in the city’s master plan involves building trails at Northrup Park, wedged between Cibolo Creek and I-10. The plan also proposes building a trail along Menger Creek to connect the I-10 corridor to City Park and the Cibolo Nature Center.
