Battle Branch
Lampasas, Lampasas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Battle Branch This branch of Sulphur Creek was named for an event in the Horrell-Higgins Feud. On the morning of March 26, 1877, Tom and Mart Horrell were going to Lampasas to attend district court. En route, they were ambushed by gunmen hiding in the brush near this location. The Horrells returned fire and the attackers rode away. Mart took his wounded brother to a nearby residence and continued to town for help. He led a squad of Texas Rangers to the site, but officers never caught the attackers. Many believed a Higgins faction had set up the ambush. The feud would continue, with additional gunfighting, for several more months. (2003)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This branch of Sulphur Creek took its name from a bloody chapter of the Horrell-Higgins Feud, one of the deadliest range vendettas of frontier Texas. On the morning of March 26, 1877, gunmen ambushed Tom and Mart Horrell as they rode to district court in Lampasas; the brothers returned fire and escaped, and Texas Rangers summoned to the scene never caught the attackers, widely believed to be Higgins partisans. The feud dragged on with more gunfire for months afterward.
Why it matters
It preserves a vivid trace of the lawless feuding that plagued post-Civil War Texas before the Rangers finally imposed order.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Tom Horrell
- · Mart Horrell
Related events
- · Horrell-Higgins Feud
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Hughes' Springs
Lampasas County, TX
These springs bear the name of Moses Hughes, remembered as the first settler in this part of Lampasas County in 1853. Tradition holds that his wife regained her health by taking the mineral waters here. Their arrival helped open the region to settlement in the years just before the Civil War.
J. A. Adkins House
Lampasas, TX
Dr. J. A. Adkins built this Lampasas house in 1868, in the lean years after the Civil War when hard cash was scarce on the Texas frontier. Rather than turn away patients who could not pay, he accepted stone in place of money — and that stone became the very walls of his home. The house stands as a literal record of a country doctor's practice.
W. R. Hughes Home
Kempner, TX
Farmer and orchard grower W. R. Hughes built this house in 1880 in an ornate "Old Plantation" style, complete with decorative gables, dormers, and fine glasswork. It survives as an example of the more elaborate rural homes raised by prospering agriculturalists in central Texas after the Civil War. The Lampasas County dwelling was recognized as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1966.
Cook Cemetery
Lampasas, TX
Cook Cemetery is Lampasas County's oldest burial ground, begun as a community graveyard in the mid-1850s when the first marked grave was dug in 1854. It took its name from William and Cynthia Cook, Arkansas settlers who bought the land in 1861, and it fell out of use after an 1873 flood swept through the low ground.