Archer County

Olney, TX

A lone cottonwood and a dependable spring made this spot a vital oasis on the nineteenth-century Texas frontier, its ground still scarred by wagon ruts. In 1849 Captain Randolph B. Marcy camped here while mapping a road for California gold-seekers, and over the next decade the spring watered soldiers establishing Fort Belknap, surveyors scouting Indian reservations, and the Butterfield Overland Mail. Rangers and cavalry under "Rip" Ford and Earl Van Dorn also staged here before riding north to fight Comanche raiders.

Megargel, TX

In the 1880s Archer County drew settlers including Irish native James Colgan and numerous families of Bohemian descent bearing names like Kulhanek, Bohac, and Pechacek. When the GT&W Railroad arrived in 1910, the town of Megargel was founded, and that same year Dr. W.T. Webb buried his infant son here in the first grave of what became the community cemetery. Maintained by an association, it holds settlers and military veterans of conflicts reaching back to the Civil War.

Antelope, TX

Antelope took its name from the springs where pronghorn watered and where the Kiowa once camped. Platted in 1875 along the Henrietta–Graham mail route, it grew into a bustling supply stop for cattle drives heading north, boasting a spa built around its mineral wells, a hotel, school, and 400 residents by 1887. Ranching and later oil kept the community alive well into the twentieth century.

Holliday, TX

Holliday took shape in 1890 as the Wichita Valley Railway pushed through and a townsite was platted along Holliday Creek. That same year Maggie Holt married H.W. Simpson; four years later he rode off on a cattle drive to Dodge City and vanished forever. Left to raise her son alone, Maggie bought a hotel in 1907 and ran it herself for nearly four decades until her death in 1946.