Cora
Gustine, Comanche County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First County Seat of Comanche County: Cora (about 4 miles south) Founded 1854, as Troy. Later renamed in honor of a Miss Beeman of Bell County. In 1856 organization of Comanche County -- then extending farther south and east than today's boundaries -- Cora became county seat. A log cabin residence in Cora was the first Comanche County Courthouse, serving until the county seat was relocated in 1859 in new town of Comanche. That first courthouse and all the other buildings are gone from site of Old Cora. Only a cemetery -- the oldest in Comanche County -- remains. Thus Cora is an example of the many early, important towns no longer existent in Texas. In the 254 counties of Texas, there have been 126 cases of redesignation of county seats. (Two counties have had five county seats each.) Boundary changes (as in Comanche County), shifts in travel routes (as when railroads were built), changes from agrarian to industrial economy have caused counties to move their county seats to new locations. Old courthouses have found later usefulness as ranch headquarters, municipal buildings, or private homes. The first log cabin courthouse of Comanche County reverted to use as a residence, but later was restored and used -- as are many former courthouses -- as part of a museum. (1968)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1854 as Troy and later renamed Cora, this vanished town became Comanche County's first seat in 1856, its government run from a log-cabin courthouse. When the county seat moved to Comanche in 1859, Cora emptied out, and today only its cemetery—the oldest in the county—remains. It stands as an example of the many once-important Texas towns erased by shifting boundaries, railroads, and changing economies.
Why it matters
Cora's disappearance illustrates how fragile early frontier towns were, their fortunes made or unmade by the placement of a courthouse or the route of a railroad.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Gustine
Gustine, TX
Settlers reached this part of Comanche County in the 1870s, some of them working land granted for Republic of Texas military service, and first gathered in a settlement called Evergreen. When a new road opened between Comanche and Hamilton in the 1880s, the whole town simply picked up and moved to sit astride the route, taking the name Gustine after its first postmaster in 1888. The arrival of the Cotton Belt Railway in 1910 brought a boom of gins, businesses, and utilities; when the line closed in the 1930s, State Highway 36 took over its right-of-way and kept the town on the map.
Evergreen Cemetery
Gustine, TX
The community of Evergreen took shape in the late 1860s, and this burial ground was set aside in 1885 when Mrs. W.F. Hampton became the first person interred here. When a post office opened in 1888 under Samuel Gustine, the town took his name. The cemetery holds generations of farming, freighting, and merchant families—the Boyds, Boltons, Couches, and others—along with Confederate and World War veterans, enduring even after the old Evergreen settlement itself faded away.
Choctaw Robinson Tree
Comanche, TX
The Rev. William Robinson, a North Carolina–born Baptist missionary, came to Texas in 1848 and organized churches across several central Texas counties while farming to support his large family. He earned the nickname "Choctaw Bill" after a band of Choctaw once complained about his long sermons. Beside this tree near a rough frontier town he often preached for hours, resting his gun in its fork as he spoke.
Union Primitive Baptist Church
Lamkin, TX
Union Primitive Baptist Church was organized in 1892 by a group of elders, deacons, and charter members in the rural Comanche County community of Lamkin. Its early records preserve the names of the farm families who built the congregation, and note that Elder Len Dalton served as pastor almost continuously from 1915. The church reflects the tight-knit religious life of a settlement-era Texas farming district.