Today as I left Granny & Granddaddy's house to come home after a great weekend, I thought about what I could do for a first today when I would be driving home on the same beaten path I always take. When I got to Stamford and saw and historical marker for the Old McKenzie Cattle Trail, I knew what my plan would be. I would stop at every historical marker along the route home which took me from Stamford to Albany to Cisco to Rising Star on to Comanche, Hamilton, Gatesville and Belton. So that's exactly what I did. After the one in Stamford, next stop was the marker for the cattle switch outside Albany on the Mathews ranch that was built so that ranchers could load cattle directly onto rail cars after the railroad came into the area. This allowed all the ranchers to drive their cattle to this central location on the Mathews ranch and load them directly onto the train to be sent to the Ft. Worth stockyards. This switch is still in use although the train no longer comes by, but the cattle are loaded onto cattle trucks for transport to Ft. Worth. Next stop was the courthouse lawn in Albany where there were 3 marks. The first I read was recounting the creation of Shackleford County. The next was an interesting account of how one of the founders of Albany went to Clara Barton of the Red Cross and asked for help for the farmers and ranchers during a severe draught. This was the first time that a draught had been considered any kind of disaster. The third marker was interesting because it told the story of the man for whom Dyess Air Force Base in Abilene is named. Here's a photo of the beautiful courthouse in Albany which in itself is very historic.
Next stop on the historical marker trail were two different markers in Moran--a tiny bump in the road between Albany and Cisco. Moran originally was a fortress settlement called Mugginsville which grew as did Albany and surrounding areas after the arrival of the Texas Central Railroad in 1881. Then in 1908 oil and gas started showing up in water wells and the boom was on for this area. The second marker concerned The Texas Company (later Texaco) which began leasing large tracts of land and putting up derricks--the Cottle No. 1 was drilled and became the 1st natural gas well in Shackelford County in 1909. This became the Moran Field.
Gustine, another tiny town along the way, had two signs. The first family settling there got the land through a land grant for their service to the Republic of Texas for military service. The second signs for the now extinct town of Cora which was nearby.
Next stop for the establishment of Lamkin in 1870 by the Leon River. Then came the Gentry cemetery, the Jonesboro First Methodist Church, a marker at the Fort Hood installation on Highway 36 outside Gatesville, and the Moffitt Cemetery near Belton.
Checking out these markers certainly broke up the trip for me and also taught me a bit about the olden days of Texas.
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