HistoricSiteMarkers
Early Republic

Haskell County

Haskell, Haskell County, Texas

Marker Inscription

Created February 1, 1858. Recreated August 21, 1876. Organized January 13, 1885. Named in honor of Charles Ready Haskell, 1817-1836. A Tennesseean who was shot with Fannin in the massacre at Goliad. Haskell, the county seat. Crossed by Capt. R.B. Marcy in surveying a route to California in 1849. First settlement at Haskell, 1882.

Erected by Texas Historical Commission

The Story

Haskell County was created in 1858 and finally organized in 1885, named for Charles Ready Haskell, a young Tennessean shot alongside Colonel Fannin's men in the 1836 Goliad Massacre during the Texas Revolution. Captain R. B. Marcy crossed this country in 1849 while surveying a wagon route to California, and the first settlement at the future county seat came in 1882.

Why it matters

The county's story compresses the arc of frontier Texas — revolutionary sacrifice, westward trail-blazing, and belated settlement — into a single stretch of the rolling plains.

Own a business near here? Add it to the map.

Related people

  • · Charles Ready Haskell
  • · James Fannin
  • · R. B. Marcy

Related events

  • · Goliad Massacre

Themes & tags

Westward ExpansionMilitary & WartimeFrontier HistoryLandmark

Nearby & related markers

The Mackenzie Trail

Old Glory, TX

The Mackenzie Trail followed corridors used for centuries, including a Comanche war trail and springs long relied on by Indigenous travelers; French and Spanish explorers and, later, U.S. officers like Marcy and Robert E. Lee passed through the region. In 1871 Colonel Ranald Mackenzie had Tonkawa scouts find a route from Fort Griffin to the High Plains for his campaigns against the Comanches and Kiowas, and he led hundreds of troops along it during those pursuits and the Red River War of 1874–75. Buffalo hunters, then ranchers and farmers followed, founding communities like Rayner, briefly Stonewall County's seat. By 1909 the railroad had replaced the trail.

Site of Camp Cooper

Throckmorton, TX

Established in January 1856 by Major W. J. Hardee's 2nd U.S. Cavalry, Camp Cooper guarded the Texas frontier against the Comanche and oversaw a nearby Indian reservation. Robert E. Lee commanded here for nineteen months before the Civil War, and the post launched the 1859 Cimarron Expedition. Texas troops seized it in February 1861 as the state left the Union.

8.6 Miles South to Fort Phantom Hill

Anson vicinity, TX

Established by the U.S. Army in 1851, Fort Phantom Hill was one of a chain of frontier posts meant to shield settlers pushing into West Texas. Its regular garrison lasted only until 1854, when the fort was abandoned and burned, but the site kept serving the frontier—as a stop on the Southern Overland Mail, a sub-post of Fort Griffin, and even a temporary county seat.

Fort Phantom Hill

Hawley, TX

Fort Phantom Hill was established in 1851 as one of a chain of frontier posts, but its garrison abandoned it after barely two and a half years. The ruins found second lives—as a stop on the Southern Overland Mail before the Civil War and as a sub-post of Fort Griffin in the early 1870s—while a lively village grew up nearby, even serving briefly as Jones County's seat in 1881 before fading away.