Unattended Death and Biohazard Cleanup in D'Hanis, TX

D'Hanis is an unincorporated community counted as a census-designated place in central Medina County, on U.S. Highway 90 and Seco Creek within the San Antonio-New Braunfels metropolitan area.

D'Hanis was founded in the spring of 1847 by twenty-nine Alsatian families as one of the Texas colonies of empresario Henri Castro.

Castro named the village for William D'Hanis, the Antwerp manager of his colonization company.

D'Hanis was the last of Castro's four colonies, following Castroville (1844), Quihi (1845), and Vandenburg (1846).

The original townsite, now called Old D'Hanis, was guarded by the U.S. Army post of Fort Lincoln from 1849 to 1851, and the arched sandstone ruins of St. Dominic Church, built in 1853, still survive there.

When the railroad bypassed the town in 1881, most residents and businesses moved about a mile and a half west to the new depot and founded New D'Hanis, which eventually dropped the 'New' from its name.

From its rail siding, the young town shipped cattle, cotton, and locally manufactured D'Hanis brick to markets across Texas.

D'Hanis had a population of 785 at the 2020 census, up from 548 at the 2000 census.

The community skews older — the 2020 census recorded a median age of 45.2 years, with 22.5 percent of residents over the age of 65.

Descendants of the Alsatian settlers preserved a distinctive Texas Alsatian dialect in Medina County that linguists have documented as a unique variety of the Alsatian language.