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McKinney Falls is Austin’s wildest backyard
Thirteen miles from downtown Austin, where Onion Creek and Williamson Creek come together, sits a park that most people outside Texas have never heard of.
McKinney Falls State Park packs nearly 750 acres of limestone, water and tall trees into a space small enough to walk in a day. There are waterfalls, swimming holes, trails and ruins from the 1800s.
The history goes back much further than that, and it’s written right into the rock.
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People have lived along this creek for thousands of years
Long before Austin existed, this stretch of Onion Creek sat along El Camino Real de los Tejas, a route used by Spanish, French and American travelers to move across the land. Native peoples camped here for centuries…