Community of Jermyn
Jermyn, Jack County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located on the western edge of Lost Valley, a 20-square mile area of Jack County, Jermyn was founded in 1909 as site of the roundhouse, depot, and office building for the Gulf, Texas & Western Railroad. It was named for J. J. Jermyn (1852-1928), line's president. Land for the town was donated by Oliver Loving II (grandson of "Dean of Texas Trail Drivers") and W. P. Stewart. Many lots were sold and the town embarked on two decades of prosperity and progress. A school was built about 1912 and Jermyn came to have numerous businesses, including a hotel, garage, bank, two general stores, blacksmith shop, land office, cotton gin and warehouse, restaurant, drugstore, ice house, lumber yard, confectionary, U.S Post Office, and a newspaper --The "Enterprise" -- succeeded by the "News". With the sale of the G.T. & W. Railroad to the Frisco system in 1930, however, a gradual decline set in. By 1936 the line curtailed passenger service, then all service. Highway construction hastened the railroad's -- and the town's-- economic demise as citizens moved to the cities to find work, and businesses closed. Today the post office, two churches, and a general store still function and part of the school serves as a civic center. Current economic base is ranching. (1972) (1972)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Jermyn sprang up in 1909 on the western edge of Jack County's Lost Valley as a division point for the Gulf, Texas & Western Railroad, named for the line's president. With land donated by a grandson of trail-driving legend Oliver Loving, the town boomed for two decades, filling with a hotel, bank, cotton gin, drugstore, newspaper, and dozens of other businesses. But when the railroad was sold to the Frisco system in 1930 and service was curtailed, Jermyn dwindled as families left for city work—leaving today a post office, two churches, a store, and ranching to sustain what remains.
Why it matters
Jermyn's rise and decline traces the boom-and-bust arc of the railroad towns that briefly flourished across the American West and faded when the tracks fell silent.
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Related people
- · J. J. Jermyn
- · Oliver Loving II
- · W. P. Stewart
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Winn Hill Cemetery
Jacksboro vicinity, TX
Winn Hill Cemetery sits along the old Butterfield Overland Mail route that crossed this area from 1858 to 1861. It takes its name from William H. Wynne, killed by Indians nearby in 1863, and grew alongside a rural school and church that formed the Winn Hill community in the 1870s. The earliest documented burial dates to 1884, and the graveyard is now the community's last physical trace.
Bryson
Bryson, TX
Henry E. Bryson, a Civil War veteran turned farmer and stockman, raised the first log cabin here in 1878, and a post office followed in 1882 to serve a growing cotton- and grain-growing district. The Rock Island Railroad arrived in 1902, but it was oil that made the town's name: the first well came in 1925, and from a gasoline plant in the 1920s to a refinery that ran until 1954, Bryson billed itself as Jack County's petroleum capital.
Town of Antelope
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.
Jack County
Jacksboro, TX
Created in 1856 and named for Texas Revolution patriots W. H. and P. C. Jack, Jack County sat squarely on the violent post-Civil War frontier. Its citizens voted overwhelmingly against secession in 1861, and after the war Fort Richardson (1867) anchored the U.S. Army's campaigns against the Plains tribes. The 1871 Kiowa raid on the Warren Wagon Train prompted General Sherman to send Colonel Ranald MacKenzie after the raiders; the resulting trial of chiefs Satanta and Big Tree was among the first prosecutions of Plains Indians in a civilian court. The county was also, improbably, home to a 1907 corn club that helped seed the national 4-H movement.