Early Settlers on Coldwater Creek
Stratford, Sherman County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First area in Sherman County to be settled, and only live water for miles. First settler, buffalo hunter J.D. Rawlings, came 1870s. Later County Judge. W.B. Slaughter acquired the Rawlings place about 1894. Later ran bank and store in Stratford. John Lanners (arrived 1892) was a cowboy at Slaughter's ranch; acquired land and ran a mule-drawn supply line. One of largest spreads was owned by Thomas Snyder (also arrived in 1892). Among other prominent early settlers were J.H. Williams, freighter, and Geo. Loomis, merchant.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Coldwater Creek offered the only live water for miles, and so it became the first settled corner of Sherman County. Buffalo hunter J.D. Rawlings arrived in the 1870s and later served as county judge; ranchers, freighters, and merchants followed in the 1890s, among them W.B. Slaughter, John Lanners, and Thomas Snyder. Together they built the cattle-and-supply economy of the Texas Panhandle frontier.
Why it matters
The story of who reached the water first captures how scarce resources dictated the pattern of settlement across the arid High Plains.
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Removal of Archives From Coldwater to Stratford
Stratford, TX
In May 1901, Sherman County voters chose to move their seat from the ranching center of Coldwater to Stratford, a town growing along the new railroad — and tempers flared. With an injunction threatened, officials held a 1 a.m. court session, canvassed the votes, and spirited the county records under cover of darkness to a tent, where armed guards kept watch for days until a horseman arrived too late to stop them. A lawsuit followed but was dismissed once Stratford's status was settled.
Sherman County Courthouse
Stratford, TX
Created in 1876 and named for Texas Revolutionary soldier Sidney Sherman, this Panhandle county organized in 1889 with its first seat at Coldwater, near its geographic center. When the Rock Island Railroad reached Stratford in the northwest corner, that town won a contested 1901 election and officials spirited the county records away by night. After fire destroyed a frame courthouse in 1922, voters kept the seat at Stratford and funded the classical-revival courthouse built here in 1923.
Sidney Sherman
Stratford, TX
Sidney Sherman was a Cincinnati businessman who threw himself into the Texas Revolution, selling off his interests to recruit and equip 52 Kentucky volunteers who sailed for Texas under a homemade "Liberty or Death" flag. He commanded the Second Regiment at the Battle of San Jacinto on April 21, 1836, opening the attack that broke the Mexican army, and was long credited with the cry "Remember the Alamo! Remember Goliad!" He went on to serve the Republic of Texas as a legislator and militia general and helped launch the state's first railroad.
Sherman County
Stratford, TX
Sherman County was carved from earlier territories and created on paper in 1876, though it was not formally organized until 1889, when settlement finally reached the far northwestern Panhandle. It honors Gen. Sidney Sherman, who commanded the left wing of the Texan army at the Battle of San Jacinto and later served in the Republic's congress. The county seat began at Coldwater in 1889 before shifting to Stratford in 1901 as the railroad reshaped the region.