Bolivar, Townsite of
Denton, Denton County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Named indirectly for Simon Bolivar, South American statesman, general and patriot. It might have been called "New Prospect," but for a mug of rum. When town was founded in 1852, a man who had settled here from Bolivar, Tenn., wanted to name the community in honor of his hometown. But a preacher-doctor insisted that it be named New Prospect. An election was called to settle the matter and the Tennessean exchanged mugs of rum for votes, Bolivar won. During the 1800s, Bolivar was the westernmost fort in Denton County and the first settlement west of Collin County. Two stagecoach lines changed horses here. The town thrived and could count three hotels, several stores, a gin, a flour mill, a sawmill, a blacksmith shop, a saloon, a church and a school. It was here that the Texas cattle trail joined the Jesse Chisholm Trail, but it was John Chisum, Texas cattle baron, who had herds here and furnished beef to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Bolivar and the surrounding area were havens for Sam Bass and his men. Two Bolivar men were jailed in 1890 for harboring notorious marauders. Many early settlers (whose descendants still live here) played important roles in development of county.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1852 and named — after a rum-fueled election settled the dispute — for a settler's Tennessee hometown (itself honoring Simón Bolívar), Bolivar grew into the westernmost fort and busiest crossroads of early Denton County. Two stagecoach lines swapped horses here, and the town where the Texas cattle trail met the Chisholm Trail bustled with hotels, mills, a gin, and a saloon. It also drew a rougher crowd: cattle baron John Chisum ran herds nearby, and outlaw Sam Bass and his gang found shelter in the surrounding country.
Why it matters
Bolivar captures the frontier Texas moment when cattle trails, stagecoach lines, and hard-edged frontier justice converged, seeding the settlements that would become north-central Texas.
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Related people
- · John Chisum
- · Sam Bass
Related events
- · Chisholm Trail cattle drives
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Chisholm Trail in Denton County
Sanger, TX
For nearly two decades after the Civil War, the Chisholm Trail carried millions of longhorns north from Texas to the Kansas railheads, and its path ran the full length of Denton County from Elizabethtown to just north of Bolivar. Returning veterans found scarce jobs and neglected ranch lands, but the booming cattle drives of 1867 to 1884 pumped money into the state and county. Tens of thousands of cowboys worked the trail, seeding heritage ranches that have stayed in the same families for over a century.
Sanger and the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway
Sanger, TX
Sanger began in 1886 as a simple water stop on the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway running north from Fort Worth toward Indian Territory. Its nearness to cattle ranches and the Chisholm Trail spurred the railroad to add cattle pens, a depot, and a side track, and landowner Elizabeth Huling platted a town around it, donating lots for a school, church, and square. Rebuilt after an 1890 fire and anchored by a flour mill, the town shifted from cattle shipping to farming as the new century arrived.
City of Krum
Krum, TX
Krum grew from an 1876 pioneer settlement known as the Jackson community into a proper town in 1886, when the Gulf, Colorado, and Santa Fe Railway bought land and named the station for railroad official Charles K. Krum. Stores, churches, and a post office quickly followed, but it was the region's rich soil that made Krum famous, drawing renown as one of the largest inland grain markets of the early 1900s. Local wheat even won the grand prize for 'Rainbow Flour' at the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair.
Cattle Trail Crossing
Decatur, TX
Near this Wise County site ran a feeder branch of the Chisholm Trail, the most famous of the routes that funneled Texas cattle toward the hungry markets of the North. The main trail was blazed in 1865 by Jesse Chisholm, a trader of Scottish and Cherokee descent, and drovers soon extended its branches from the Rio Grande up to the Red River, passing fixed fords like the Trinity crossing at Fort Worth. By the 1890s barbed wire, railroads, and tick quarantines had ended the great drives, but not before the trail helped rebuild a Texas economy wrecked by the Civil War.