Forts Trail Region
Abilene
FRONTIER REDUX Abilene owes its county seat to its founding fathers, local ranchers and businessmen who met with H. C. Whithers, the Texas and Pacific Railway townsite locator, for a friendly little…
Forts Trail Region Cities and Towns
Explore Texas cities and towns in the Forts Trail Region
Cities
Forts Trail Region
Albany
ALBANY ARTISTIC Shackelford County’s first permanent jail, located in the county seat of Albany and completed in 1878, served the region’s citizenry for more than half a century. No doubt jailers in…
Forts Trail Region
Anson
The settlement originally at Fort Phantom Hill was relocated to a site that its founders mistakenly thought would be on the Texas and Pacific Railway lines. The town, and later Jones County…
Forts Trail Region
Aspermont
Aspermont is at the junction of U.S. highways 83 and 380 and Farm roads 610, 2211, and 1263, fifty-nine miles north of Abilene in central Stonewall County. It was platted as a…
Forts Trail Region
Baird
Hundreds of thousands of cattle passed through here along the Western Cattle Trail. A local railhead was established with the arrival of the railroad in 1880, and the site was named for…
Forts Trail Region
Ballinger
History bustles in Ballinger with a thriving historic downtown, restored period homes and the 1889 Runnels County Courthouse. Every April the courthouse square—one of the largest in the state—showcases ethnic foods, arts…
Forts Trail Region
Brady
MEET ME IN THE MIDDLE The Texas Forts Trail community of Brady has served as middle ground for Central Texans since its establishment in the 1870s. Founded halfway between Fort Mason and…
Forts Trail Region
Breckenridge
When visitors come to admire the 1926 Classical Revival-style Stephens County Courthouse, many are surprised to find a steel oil derrick looming across the street. The non-working rig marks downtown like a…
Forts Trail Region
Bronte
It’s a switch for a frontier town to change its name from Bronco to Bronte (after the English novelist Charlotte Bronte). But Bronte it was for the high-minded cattle ranchers who established…
Forts Trail Region
Brownwood
Walk two blocks from the Classical Revival-style Brown County Courthouse, and you arrive at what looks like an ancient fortress, complete with towers and crenellated limestone walls. Actually it’s the Brown County…
Forts Trail Region
Buffalo Gap
The high hills of the Callahan Divide run for 26 miles just south of Abilene, and for at least centuries, buffalo herds migrated through a gap in this divide. Apache and Comanche…
Forts Trail Region
Cisco
Henry Mobley was lucky to build his two-story hotel in 1916. When oil blew in a year later, the Mobley stayed so full it rented rooms in eight-hour shifts. In 1919, a…
Forts Trail Region
Coleman
Most visitors know the high hills, wide-open spaces and many lakes around Coleman as a paradise for hunters and anglers. But the area’s history rekindles the drama of the Old West. Comanche…
Forts Trail Region
Comanche
ONCE COMANCHE COUNTRY Named after the Native American warriors famed for their exceptional hunting skills and horsemanship. Comanche and Comanche County are steeped in a rich and complex history. By 1881, just…
Forts Trail Region
Cross Plains
Cross Plains was named for the crossings of stagecoaches and military roads prior to the Civil War. It is said that Robert E. Lee and U.S. Grant camped with their troops at…
Forts Trail Region
De Leon
The Texas Central Railroad reached the Leon River valley in 1881, enroute to Colorado, and established De Leon to attract Southern cotton farmers to this fertile area. By 1910 the Mexican boll…
Forts Trail Region
Dublin
Dublin has been known for a century as home of the world’s first Dr Pepper bottling plant. The family-owned Dublin Bottling Works remains the state’s oldest soda bottling facility, though it no…
Forts Trail Region
Early
In 1929, Brownwood resident Walter Urie Early donated land east of the city to the Jones Chapel Rural School District. A school named Early was built there in 1930, and a community…
Forts Trail Region
Eastland
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…
Forts Trail Region
Eden
Eden gets its name not from a Biblical garden, but from town founder Frederick Ede, a native of England and pioneer ranchman who gave land for the town. The town’s most famous…
Forts Trail Region
Fort McKavett
The community of Fort McKavett is at the intersection of Farm roads 864 and 1674, southwest of Menard. Fort McKavett began in the 1850s as a community of civilians associated with a…
Forts Trail Region
Goldthwaite
Post-Civil War vigilante groups still terrorized locals in the late 1880s when Goldthwaite became the seat of newly-formed Mills County. First order of county business: build a sturdy two-story limestone jail, now…
Forts Trail Region
Graham
WORTH ITS WEIGHT IN SALT Graham, Young County seat, built three previous courthouses before finally settling on the 1932 Art Moderne stone and concrete construction in use today. The Young County courthouse…
Forts Trail Region
Haskell
In West Texas water is life. That’s why reliable springs here attracted 19th century Native Americans and white hunters who followed bison herds across the plains. Army Capt. Randolph Marcy’s expedition stopped…
Forts Trail Region
Jacksboro
SECOND TIME’S A CHARM It took several tries (and several names) to kickstart the Texas Forts Trail community of Jacksboro. A small agrarian colony along the banks of Lost Creek got things…
Forts Trail Region
Mason
From Post Hill you look down on the white dome of the Mason County Courthouse, and you look back 150 years. The U.S. Army established Fort Mason here in the 1850s to…
Forts Trail Region
Menard
SMALL TOWN, BIG PICTURE The community we know as Menard, with its dense history dating back to the 1700s, mixes plenty of history with legend, keeping history exciting and helping to make…
Forts Trail Region
Miles
Miles, on U.S. Highway 67, Farm Road 2872, and the Santa Fe Railroad, in southwestern Runnels County, was named for settler Jonathan Miles, who donated $5,000 for the extension of the railroad…
Forts Trail Region
Mineral Wells
A WELL FULL OF MINERALS Mineral Wells founder (and first well digger) J. A. Lynch claimed that drinking and bathing in the local mineral waters cured his “rheumatism”, a 19th century term…
Forts Trail Region
Paint Rock
THE FRENCH EMPIRE COMES TO TEXAS Established around a mile from the banks of the Concho River, the Texas Fort Trail community of Paint Rock served as site for fording the river…
Forts Trail Region
Robert Lee
The county seat of Coke County, Robert Lee is located at the junction of State highways 158 and 208 north of San Angelo. Robert Lee was founded by two Confederate veterans -…
Forts Trail Region
San Angelo
CONCHO RIVER PEARL San Angelo started out on the right foot for Texas heritage travelers, particularly when it comes to frontier history and early Texas architecture. The townsite, originally a trading post…
Forts Trail Region
Santa Anna
Santa Anna is at the intersection of the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway, U.S. highways 283, 67, and 84, and Farm Road 1176 eight miles southeast of Coleman in southeast central…
Forts Trail Region
Stamford
Stamford may have been named for a city in Connecticut, but this place is all cowboy all the time. It’s been that way since the late 1800s when Swante Magnus Swenson, the…
Forts Trail Region
Stephenville
Town namesake John M. Stephen donated land for the town site, which was laid out by county namesake George B. Erath. Today, downtown Stephenville offers 1890s-era stone buildings surrounding the Romanesque Revival-style…
Forts Trail Region
Sweetwater
Wide-open spaces and potable water brought Native Americans, buffalo hunters and ranchers to these rolling prairies and plateaus. Sweetwater became the seat of Nolan County in 1881 just as the first railroad…
Forts Trail Region
Throckmorton
When you travel U.S. 183 through Throckmorton, think cattle drive. The highway traces the 1870s-1880s route of the Great Western Trail where tough cowboys drove millions of cattle from South Texas, across…
Forts Trail Region
Thurber
In the early 20th century, a prosperous coal and brick operation made Thurber a thriving city between Fort Worth and El Paso. Owned by the Texas and Pacific Coal Company, the booming…
Forts Trail Region
Winters
Founded in 1890, the town was named for rancher and land agent J.N. Winters. The Z.I. Hale Museum bears the name of a local optometrist whose office now houses displays on early-day…