Cross Plains Review
Cross Plains, Callahan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Belmont L. Shields founded the Cross Plains Review in April 1909, when the town was sited on Turkey Creek. He wanted the newspaper established before the railroad came to town, which occurred when the Texas central arrived in 1912 and most businesses and homes moved one mile to the new townsite. After publishing for five years, shields sold the paper to L. P. Henslee, who in 1921 sold the business to three local merchants. The Review has been an important resource for citizens and a unique chronicle, recording community development and such events as the death of writer Robert E. Howard, the 2005 wildfires, and the town’s 100th anniversary. As the oldest business in cross plains, the Review is intertwined with the history of the community.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Belmont L. Shields founded the Cross Plains Review in April 1909, deliberately getting his paper going before the railroad arrived — which it did when the Texas Central reached town in 1912 and most of the community picked up and moved a mile to the new townsite. Passing through a series of owners after 1914, the Review became the town's memory, chronicling everything from local growth to the death of pulp writer Robert E. Howard and the wildfires of 2005. As the oldest business in Cross Plains, it is woven into the town's story.
Why it matters
Small-town newspapers like the Review were the connective tissue of rural America, recording the ordinary and extraordinary alike and preserving a community's history in print.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early years of the twentieth century, the rolling ranch country of Callahan County was still finding its shape. Little communities gathered wherever water and trade made sense, and in those days the town of Cross Plains sat beside Turkey Creek. It was farming and ranching land, hopeful and a little rough around the edges, the kind of place where a good year and a bad year could look very different.
The one force that could remake a Texas town overnight was the railroad. A rail line meant markets for cotton and cattle, a depot, a reason for merchants to build and families to settle. Towns lived or died by whether the tracks came near, and it was common for an entire community to physically pick up and move to be closer to a new line.
That is exactly the world this marker preserves. A newspaper founded here in 1909 was betting on a future that had not yet arrived, in a town about to be rearranged by iron rails and the promise of connection to the wider country.
People & events
The story begins with Belmont L. Shields, who founded the Cross Plains Review in April 1909, back when the town still stood beside Turkey Creek. What makes his timing remarkable is that he deliberately got his press running before the railroad reached town. He wanted a paper in place to chronicle the change he could see coming.
The change came in 1912, when the Texas Central arrived. As happened again and again across the state, most of the town's businesses and homes simply relocated, moving roughly a mile to a new townsite laid out along the tracks. Shields published for five years, then sold to L. P. Henslee, who in 1921 passed the business to three local merchants.
Across more than a century, the Review became the town's collective memory. Its pages recorded ordinary community growth and the milestones that mattered, including the death of the writer Robert E. Howard, the devastating wildfires of 2005, and the town's own hundredth birthday. As the oldest business in Cross Plains, the paper is woven into the life of the place it reports on.
Its place in the American story
To understand why a small-town paper earns a historical marker, you have to remember what these newspapers were. Across rural America, the local weekly was the connective tissue of community life. It printed who married, who was born, who died, whose crop came in, and whose barn burned. It was the record no county archive kept, written in real time by people who lived the story.
The Review also sits at the edge of a surprising literary footnote. Robert E. Howard, the creator of Conan the Barbarian and a central figure in the pulp magazine era, made his home in Cross Plains. His work reached readers far beyond Texas, and today his preserved home draws admirers from around the world, a reminder that big imaginations often come from small places.
The Texas Central's arrival, and the town's move to meet it, is a quintessentially American drama. The nation's map was redrawn one railhead at a time, and communities followed the tracks or faded. A newspaper that captured that transformation from the inside is a primary source in the truest sense.
If you visit
Cross Plains is a quiet Callahan County town, the kind you slow down for rather than speed through. Come with the mindset of a reader as much as a traveler, because the real subject here is a printed record that has outlasted nearly everything else in town.
As you look around, remember that the community you see is not on its original ground. The town moved about a mile when the railroad came, so the streets around you represent a deliberate second beginning. It is worth pausing to imagine buildings being lifted and hauled toward the promise of the tracks.
For visitors with a taste for the offbeat, Cross Plains is also known as the home of pulp writer Robert E. Howard, whose preserved house has become a small pilgrimage site for fans of his adventure fiction. Woven together, a century-old newspaper and a wildly imaginative author make this modest town a rewarding, unexpected stop on a West Texas road trip.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Belmont L. Shields
- · Robert E. Howard
- · L. P. Henslee
Themes & tags
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