Forts Trail Region

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The 1920s oil boom is alive and well in Eastland. Completed in 1928 the Art Deco-style Eastland County courthouse remains the well-known home of Old Rip, the horned toad retrieved from the 1897 courthouse’s cornerstone. Find the toad’s tale and his statue in a new pocket park around the corner from the courthouse. Next door to Old Rip Park is Eastland’s civic center, once a 1920s luxury hotel started by town founder C.E. Connellee. In the same block find another restored Connellee oil boom building, the Western-themed Art Deco Majestic Theater, which hosts current films and stage productions. The refurbished 1918 Eastland Hotel stands next door and serves as a historic bed and breakfast. Learn the history of surrounding communities at the Eastland County Museum, housed in a restored 1920s bank. And don’t miss Eastland’s most notorious historical tidbit, told by the Law Enforcement Museum at the 1897 county jail where the state’s last public lynching took place in the 1920s. All around town find red brick streets that once formed the local stretch of the Bankhead Highway, America’s first coast-to-coast roadway.