Harkeyville
San Saba, San Saba County, Texas
Marker Inscription
A site once famous for its horses and racetrack. Riley Harkey (1832-1920) and Israel Harkey (1835-1914) were Indian scouts in Texas in 1850-53. In 1855 they led their parents, Mathias and Catherine Harkey, to move here from Arkansas with other adult sons, daughters, in-laws and grandchildren. The families ranched, and Mathias Harkey ran a country store for many years. Riley Harkey brought to Texas a fine, fleet footed mare, who with her racing progeny drew crowds of enthusiasts to this site for half a century. Other sons and grandsons of Mathias Harkey also joined in the breeding, training, and racing of horses. Stores, blacksmith shop, and other businesses all faced east on a single street overlooking the flat with its racetrack and baseball diamond. There was no post office, but the village was so well known that mail addressed to Harkeyville promptly arrived here. On Nov. 26, 1873, George W. Barnett (1823-1885) gave land for the first school; the schoolhouse was used also for church services and public meetings. The racetrack closed in 1907; the cotton gin burned in 1920, and was not rebuilt; school consolidated in 1929 with San Saba. The last store closed in 1954. A community hall, built 1973, marks site of the town.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Founded in 1855 when the Harkey family moved from Arkansas, this San Saba County community grew famous for its horses and its racetrack—drawing crowds for half a century behind a fleet-footed mare Riley Harkey brought from Arkansas. A single street of stores, a blacksmith shop, a school, and a baseball diamond overlooked the racetrack flat. The track closed in 1907, the school consolidated in 1929, and the last store shut in 1954, leaving only a community hall to mark the town.
Why it matters
Harkeyville is a classic vanished Texas hamlet, showing how frontier settlement, sport, and small-town life rose and faded with the fortunes of the surrounding countryside.
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Related people
- · Riley Harkey
- · Israel Harkey
- · Mathias Harkey
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Methodist Church
San Saba, TX
Organized in 1856 in country so rough the congregation reportedly armed its missionary with a revolver and a good horse, this Methodist church built its first frame sanctuary in 1882. The present building, raised between 1914 and 1919 of local San Saba marble, is said to be the only all-marble Methodist church in the United States. It stands as a monument both to faith and to the stone quarried from the surrounding hills.
First Baptist Church of San Saba
San Saba, TX
A generation before the town of San Saba existed, settlers gathered as a Baptist congregation meeting in homes along Simpson Creek, formed in 1856 under a traveling missionary preacher. As the frontier community matured, the fellowship worshiped in the county courthouse and a schoolhouse before raising its own buildings, weathering a 1923 fire and rebuilding with local marble and brick. Its long life mirrors the growth of a central Texas town from raw frontier to settled community.
San Saba Church of Christ
San Saba, TX
When San Saba County was organized in 1856, the commissioners granted a block of land to each religious body, and the local Christian church traded for a site and raised a small frame building. Early worship depended on lay elders and traveling ministers, punctuated by the lively public religious debates popular in frontier San Saba. The national 1904 division within the Christian church led this congregation to become a Church of Christ, and it weathered the Depression, a 1957 split, and lean years to flourish again in the 1970s.
James Louis & Ellen Austin Baker
San Saba, TX
Jim and Ellen Baker married in 1859 into families that had come to Texas during the Republic era, and Jim built one of the region's early cattle fortunes—driving 6,000 head into newly formed San Saba County in 1856. Their family survived a Comanche attack in 1861 that left Jim wounded, and after the Civil War he and his brother ran vast herds along the Goodnight-Loving Trail into Colorado and out to the Quitaque country of the Panhandle. In 1880 the brothers sold their 140,000-acre Quitaque Ranch and 20,000 cattle to Charles Goodnight, then returned to ranch quietly in their beloved San Saba.