Donley County
Clarendon, Donley County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Formed from Young and Bexar territories; Created August 21, 1876; Organized March 22, 1882; Named in honor of Stockton P. Donley 1821-1871; a Confederate officer elected to the Texas Supreme Bench in 1866; Clarendon, the County Seat.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Donley County was created in 1876 from Young and Bexar territories and formally organized in 1882, with Clarendon as its county seat. It honors Stockton P. Donley (1821–1871), a Confederate officer who was elected to the Texas Supreme Court in 1866. Its creation marked the extension of Texas government onto the high plains of the Panhandle.
Why it matters
The county's formation reflects the organized push of Texas settlement and governance into the Panhandle frontier in the decades after the Civil War.
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Related people
- · Stockton P. Donley
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
S. W. Lowe House
Clarendon, TX
Built in 1904 by local merchants, this Panhandle house passed through the hands of ranchers and cattlemen before Sam W. Lowe—a college educator, merchant, stock farmer, and three-term county judge—bought it in 1926. His widow Lilac lived there until 1981, more than fifty years after they moved in.
Church of St. John Baptist
Clarendon, TX
The oldest continuously used church in the Texas Panhandle's earliest Episcopal parish began with services held in a ranch house in 1877. On land given in 1891 by Isaac W. Carhart, the congregation built its church in 1893, naming it at the request of a Philadelphia donor, Elizabeth Goff. Bishop A. C. Garrett consecrated it that April, and it was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1971.
First United Methodist Church of Clarendon
Clarendon, TX
Methodist minister Lewis H. Carhart founded Clarendon in 1878 as a sober religious and educational colony on the Panhandle plains—cowboys mockingly dubbed the saloonless town "Saint's Roost." When the railroad arrived in 1887 the town moved to its present site, where circuit riders and then the Rev. Isaac L. Mills organized the Methodist Episcopal Church, South in 1888. As Clarendon College drew new members, the congregation built its large Classical Revival sanctuary in 1910.
Donley County Courthouse
Clarendon, TX
Designed by Bulger and Rapp and built by the Troutman Brothers of Trinidad, Colorado, the Donley County Courthouse opened in November 1891 as a striking Romanesque Revival landmark of towers, red brick, and limestone. Remodeling in the 1930s stripped away the entire third floor and much of its ornament, but a careful restoration returned it to its original grandeur, rededicated on July 4, 2003. It is now the oldest functioning courthouse in the Texas Panhandle.