Acton Public Square
Acton, Hood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The oldest community in what is now Hood County, Acton was settled during the 1850's. First called "Comanche Peak" when a post office was established here on March 10, 1856, the town was renamed "Acton" before the post office was reopened, March 16, 1868. Clarence P. Hollis, pioneer merchant and early postmaster, donated 1.43 acres of land for this public square in the 1860's. Once the hub of commercial activity, the square declined after many of the buildings around it burned. The site was resurveyed in 1974 and restored as center of this rural community. (1976)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The oldest community in present-day Hood County, Acton was settled in the 1850s and first called "Comanche Peak" when its post office opened in 1856. Renamed Acton by 1868, the town centered on this public square, donated by pioneer merchant Clarence P. Hollis, which once buzzed with commerce before fires and decline set in. The square was resurveyed and restored in 1974 as the heart of the rural community.
Why it matters
The rise, decline, and restoration of Acton's square mirrors the life cycle of countless frontier crossroads towns that anchored settlement across nineteenth-century Texas.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the 1850s, the country west of the Brazos River was still frontier. Texas had joined the Union only a decade earlier, and families from the older Southern states were moving onto the rolling prairies and cedar-dotted hills of North Central Texas. They came for cheap land, good grass and the chance at a fresh start. Small settlements took shape wherever a store, a church, a mill or a post office drew neighbors together.
The first name of the settlement that became Acton pointed straight at the landscape. Comanche Peak, a flat-topped mesa that rises above the surrounding country, was a well-known landmark to Native peoples and settlers alike. Calling the post office after it tied the young community to the most recognizable feature on its horizon.
The years that followed were turbulent. The Civil War and its aftermath disrupted mail service, trade and daily life across Texas, and Hood County itself was not created until 1866. When the post office here reopened in 1868 under a new name, Acton was taking part in the slow rebuilding of a frontier society during Reconstruction.
People & events
The central figure of this story is Clarence P. Hollis, a pioneer merchant who also served as one of Acton's early postmasters. In a young frontier town those two jobs often went together. The store was where people bought flour, cloth and tools, and it was also where they picked up letters from family back east. Merchants like Hollis were the connective tissue of rural life.
In the 1860s Hollis gave 1.43 acres for a public square, which was an act of real civic faith. A square signals that a town means to last. It gives commerce a center, gives neighbors a place to meet, and gives the community a shape. For a time it worked: buildings rose around the square, and it became the busy hub of Acton's trade.
Then fire took many of those buildings, and with them much of the square's commercial life. The marker does not tell us the details of the fires, and it is best not to guess. The outcome is clear, though: the center of town faded. Then, in 1974, the community had the site resurveyed and restored it as the heart of rural Acton, so the old square once again had a purpose.
Its place in the American story
Acton's story is the life story of thousands of American crossroads towns. A post office opens, a merchant invests, a square takes shape and trade flourishes. Then something changes, whether fire, a railroad that bypasses the town, or a county seat that grows elsewhere, and the bustle moves on. Across the South and West, many such places vanished entirely.
What makes Acton notable is that it remembered itself. Restoring the square in the 1970s fits a broader national moment. Around the American Bicentennial, communities everywhere began marking and preserving their own beginnings. The 1976 date on this marker places Acton squarely in that wave of local pride.
Public squares also carry a larger American idea: shared ground set aside for everyone. When a private citizen donates land for common use, he is helping build the civic infrastructure that small-town democracy depends on.
If you visit
Acton is a quiet rural community today, so come expecting open space and calm rather than a bustling downtown. Stand on the square and picture it surrounded by storefronts, with wagons drawn up and neighbors trading news, then notice how the restored ground still serves as the community's center.
Look toward the horizon and think about the town's first name. Comanche Peak, the landmark the first post office was named for, is part of the surrounding landscape, a reminder of how early settlers found their way.
Acton fits easily into a Hood County drive alongside nearby Granbury, the county seat, with its historic courthouse square. History lovers should also know that the Acton area is home to Acton State Historic Site, the cemetery plot where Elizabeth Crockett, widow of Davy Crockett, is buried. That makes this little community a rewarding stop on any North Texas back-roads trip.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Clarence P. Hollis
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Acton Methodist Church
Acton, TX
The settlement once called Comanche Peak Post Office took shape in the early 1850s, and its Methodists first worshipped in a shared union church and the local Masonic hall before establishing themselves on their own. In 1874 the trustees bought land here for church, school, and burials, raised their first sanctuary in 1899, and grew steadily—especially after the nearby de Cordova Bend Reservoir revived the area in the 1960s. From a handful of frontier worshippers the congregation swelled into the hundreds by the 1990s.
Acton Baptist Church (First Baptist Church of Acton)
Acton, TX
In 1855, a preacher known as "Fighting Joe" Robinson gathered about twenty charter members to organize a Baptist congregation on the North Texas frontier at Acton. He was succeeded by the Rev. James Halford, a son-in-law of frontiersman David Crockett, whose family had settled nearby. For years the Baptists shared a communal building called the Long House before raising their own sanctuary in 1894, a structure still in use today.
Acton Cemetery
Acton, TX
Acton Cemetery holds the grave of Elizabeth Patton Crockett (1788–1860), widow of Alamo hero David Crockett, along with two of his children; a monument and statue were raised in her memory in 1911. The surrounding grounds form the smallest state park in Texas. The community — first called Comanche Peak — was renamed Acton in 1855 by merchant C. P. Hollis, and pioneers set aside this plot as a burial ground after building a shared church and school.
Grave of Elizabeth Crockett
Acton, TX
This grave marks the resting place of Elizabeth Crockett, second wife of frontiersman and Alamo defender David Crockett, who married him in Tennessee in 1816. After Crockett's death at the Alamo, Elizabeth eventually came to Texas on land granted for his service and died in 1860 in what is now Hood County. Her monument stands as a tribute to the family the famed frontiersman left behind.