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
Explore Texas cities 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
Bend
Bend is located between San Saba and Lampasas, on Ranch Road 580 at a horseshoe-shaped bend in the Colorado River. The community is home to the Colorado Bend State Park. The area…
Forts Trail Region
Bluff Dale
Bluff Dale is located on U.S. Highway 377 and the North Paluxy River in Erath County. Before the community was granted a post office by the name of Bluff Dale, the community…
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
High hills of the Callahan Divide run for 26 miles just south of Abilene. Centuries of buffalo herds migrated through a gap in the divide. Apache and Comanche followed them there, and…
Forts Trail Region
Castell
The former utopian community of Castell features several points of interest, including the Old Schoolhouse, now used for weddings and functions; Trinity United Methodist and St. John Lutheran churches, which were organized…
Forts Trail Region
Christoval
Located south of San Angelo, Christoval is named for Christopher Columbus Doty, an early settler. It is a quaint little town, and a change from what one might assume to be West…
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 Although the community of Comanche and Comanche County were named for the Native American warriors known for their excellent hunting skills and superb horsemanship, a mere twenty five years…
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
We are strategically located in central Texas, northern tip of Texas Hill Country and about 76 to 150 miles from Abilene, San Angelo, Ft. Worth and Austin Texas. Early has various amenities…
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
Eldorado
In 1930, rail service finally reached Eldorado, where sheep production was rising along this arid crest of the Edwards Plateau. Established in 1939, West Texas Woolen Mills flourished under U.S. Army contracts…
Forts Trail Region
Eola
The Earnest and Dorothy Barrow Foundation Museum in the community of Eola began with memorabilia collected by local ranchers and world ravelers, the Barrows, and subsequently expanded by other donors. Diverse artifacts…
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
Gordon
The southern Palo Pinto County town of Gordon has a unique history. The town sprang from one of the earliest settlements in that area and quickly became a major trade and shipping…
Forts Trail Region
Gorman
Gorman is on State Highway 6 and Farm Road 8 in Eastland County. Gorman was originally known as Shinoak but was renamed for Patrick Gorman, roadmaster of the Texas Central Railroad in…
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
Gustine
Gustine, in southeastern Comanche County, was settled about 1873 by H. H. Blankenship and M. B. Odell. The first settlement, which was called Old Evergreen, was about three-quarters of a mile northeast…
Forts Trail Region
Hamlin
Hamlin’s economy boomed twice in the early 20th century — when three railroads inaugurated service between 1906 and 1910 and again when oil was discovered nearby in 1928. The headquarters of Cooper…
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
Hawley
Hawley was settled by farmers and ranchers who named the community for C. W. Hawley, an official with the Wichita Valley Railroad. In spite of a fire in 1924 that destroyed most…
Forts Trail Region
Huckabay
Founded in 1875, Huckabay was called Flat Woods. When the town received a post office, the community was named for its first postmaster, John A. Huckabay. The Huckabay Academy operated from 190…
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
Lowake
Established in 1909, Lowake was named for two farmers, Lowe and Schlake, who donated land for the townsite. Lowake is perhaps best known for the Lowake Steakhouse.
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
Mertzon
A monument on the Irion County Courthouse grounds pays tribute to the Battle of Dove Creek, a skirmish on January 8, 1865 involving Confederate troops, state militia and a migrating group of…
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
Mingus
Named for settler William Mingus, who arrived in the 1850s, the town was born with the arrival of the Texas and Pacific Railroad in 1881. Mingus has remained quiet with no disasters…
Forts Trail Region
Moran
Moran, on State Highway 6 and the intersection of Farm roads 576 and 2408, in southeastern Shackelford County, was established in 1882, when the Texas Central Railroad was constructed through the area…
Forts Trail Region
Morgan Mill
MORGAN MILL, TEXAS. Morgan Mill, on the North Paluxy River at the junction of U.S. Highway 281 and Farm roads 1189 and 1715 in northeastern Erath County, was the site of a…
Forts Trail Region
Old Glory
In the late 1880s, the area had a few ranches and some scattered farms. By 1904, a group of German Americans had settled in the area and laid out a townsite to…
Forts Trail Region
Olney
Olney is a rural community in north central Texas located one-hundred miles west of Fort Worth, forty miles south of Wichita Falls, two-hundred miles east of Lubbock and ninety miles northeast of…