Jacksboro's First Railroad Depot
Jacksboro, Jack County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Built 1898 of native stone by Risley Brothers of Jacksboro, for the Chicago, Rock Island & Texas Railway, on site bought from F. F. Foscue (1819-1906), a Texas legislator, owner of Fort Richardson lands. In typical railroad architecture, the depot housed waiting rooms and offices. Mrs. Edith Wilmans, a local rancher, Texas' first (1923) woman legislator, often traveled from this station. The Rock Island system sold the structure in 1973 to Texas Export Railroad Company. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1974.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Jacksboro's first railroad depot rose in native stone in 1898, built by the Risley Brothers for the Chicago, Rock Island & Texas Railway on land bought from legislator F. F. Foscue. Its waiting rooms and offices connected this North Texas town to the wider rail network, and among its travelers was rancher Edith Wilmans, who in 1923 became the first woman elected to the Texas Legislature. The Rock Island line kept the depot until 1973.
Why it matters
Small-town depots were the doors through which the railroad, and the wider world it carried, reached rural America — and here they served a pioneer of women's political leadership in Texas.
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Related people
- · Edith Wilmans
- · F. F. Foscue
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Butterfield Stage Line
Jacksboro, TX
Through this spot ran the Butterfield line of the Southern Overland Mail, which from 1858 to 1861 carried mail and passengers by stagecoach the astonishing 2,795 miles between St. Louis and San Francisco. Twice a week the coaches rolled through, and the reliability of the service over such punishing distance made it one of the great transportation feats of its age—until the Civil War severed the southern route.
Fort Richardson
Jacksboro, TX
Built by the U.S. Army in 1867, Fort Richardson anchored the northernmost line of federal posts guarding Texas settlers during the Indian Wars that followed the Civil War. The site had already known travelers as a stop on the Butterfield Overland stage route in the years before secession. Garrisoned troops rode from here on patrols across a contested frontier until the post was abandoned in 1879 as the fighting moved west.
Former Gulf, Texas & Western Railroad Depot
Jacksboro, TX
Built in 1910 of stone from a nearby quarry, this depot served Jacksboro's second railroad, the Gulf, Texas & Western. The line was financed through local effort with backing from the New York banking firm of R. C. Megargel & Company. A recorded Texas Historical Landmark, it stands as a reminder of the rail connections that shaped small North Texas towns.
Jack County
Jacksboro, TX
Created in 1856 and named for Texas Revolution patriots W. H. and P. C. Jack, Jack County sat squarely on the violent post-Civil War frontier. Its citizens voted overwhelmingly against secession in 1861, and after the war Fort Richardson (1867) anchored the U.S. Army's campaigns against the Plains tribes. The 1871 Kiowa raid on the Warren Wagon Train prompted General Sherman to send Colonel Ranald MacKenzie after the raiders; the resulting trial of chiefs Satanta and Big Tree was among the first prosecutions of Plains Indians in a civilian court. The county was also, improbably, home to a 1907 corn club that helped seed the national 4-H movement.