Essay by Laura Castro (Dellana Family)

Essay on how the Dellana family came to Rollingwood. Castro covers Condado Dellana's emigration from Italy to Texas, his work building the capitol building, and the cave on his Rollingwood property whose bat-guano fertilizer he sold to nurseries across the state.

Transcribed text

_The following text was extracted via OCR from the digitized scan held by The Portal to Texas History (UNT Libraries). OCR can introduce errors, especially on handwritten material; the canonical record links to the original scan._

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Historical Review of the Dellana Heritage By Laura Castro

Westlake High School

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Acres and acres of hill country land, settled by an Italian immigrant more than seven decades ago, bears great historical value within the Eanes School District. Property owners of this land for the last seventy-two years, the Dellana family has aided greatly in the development of the Eanes Area. Born at Trieste, Italy in 1865, Condado Dellana later left his native country to come to the United States. Facing the hardships as a foreigner in a new country, Condado (Italian translation of Charles) arrived by boat to New York. A marble cutter in Italy, he decided to use his skill to find work in the United States. Upon hearing word of a state capitol being built, Condado Dellana came to Austin during the 1880's. During his travel to Texas, he met and married Miss Raggio, who was born and raised in New Orleans. After working in the capital building for many years and receiving little pay, Condado, in the 1890's, decided to invest in a grocery store and a saloon. He also bought a place in Creedmoore . The grocery store (which still remains as an old brick building) was ibcated on 4th Street in

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On one occasion, Condado Dellana adventured up the Colorado River. Paddling his boat up one of the connecting springs, Dellana discovered a big cave. Upon entering the cave, bats began to emerge by the thousands. He found stones and arrowheads, which had once belonged to the pre- vious Indian inhabitants. Seeing this place (which was part of the land currently known as Rollingwood), made Dellana realize that the land contained a generous supply of good rock and wood. His most ingenious plan, however, was to make use of the vast amount of bat manure. Bat manure along with dead bats deposited within the cave, combined to form one of the richest fertilizers. Since commercial fertilizers were not available at that time, this "natural fertilizer" was desired by most plant nurserys in Austin. So in 1904, the Dellanas sold their saloon and grocery store, moved away from Creedmoor , and purchased the acres of land he found. At that time, seventy-two years ago, Condado Dellan paid $4.50 an acre. By the time he was through purchasing, his property totaled to twenty-one hundred acres of the Westlake Hills area. In 1905, the Dellanas along with their two sons occupied their first house on the property. Raising Longhorn cattle, Condado soon encountered the problem of obtaining water. He could not dig a well because, the hard rock earth prevented him from reaching water for

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200 feet. Instead Condado found a creek, part of Barton's Springs, and hauled water for his cattle, and livestock, and also for his family. He would haul it in a 55 gallon barrel In the course of Condado's life in the Eanes area, he dug up a bell buried at the site of the existing dog pound in Austin. The bell, a heavy 150 pounds, originally belonged to the established missions near Austin. The bell was given to the first school in the Eanes District by Condado. When the original school was no longer in use, the bell was returned to the Dellanas, whom then gave it to the San Jose Missions. Condado Dellana died in 1914, and his wife died in 1948. When she died, she left the Rollingwood property to one son and the''South Pasture' (area across from Rolling- wood) to another son. Although one son sold his property, the other, Charles F. Dellana, born in 1893, stayed on to develop his land. In 1922, he married Emma Farrow from Austin. Her parents had also been immigrants from Italy. Charles F. Dellana and his wife made their living by selling vegetables, wood post, cattle, and hogs. Mrs. Dellana raised her three sons and one daughter on the Dellana property. The children, however, did not attend Eanes School. Because of strong religious backgrounds, the children attended parochial schools in Austin.

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Charles Dellana, along with a few neighbors built their own line for electricity. With a oopper wire and poles, the line extended from Barton Bridge to the current Westwood area. Transportation for the Dellana family before 1922 was a horse and buggy, while afterwards it was a Ford Model car. Many legends have surrounded the Dellana property in the past. One of them began when the State Capital Treasury in Austin was robbed many years ago. The story says that the robbers hid the money somewhere on Dellana land, supposedly in the "bat cave". The Dellanas however, do not believe this. People with all types of contraptions and machines, have looked for the gold(including the Dellanas) and have never recovered this hidden treasure. Until his death in 1973, Charles F. Dellan was active within the Eanes community, especially during election time at the Eanes School. Charles F. Dellana iwad survived by his wife and children, His wife and two of his sons are still living on the historical land. Currently, there exists 600 acres of the original property under the family name of Dellana.

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Dellana, Emma. February 22, 1976. Dellana, Charles B. February 22, 1976.

Original record: metapth1065526 on the Portal to Texas History.