Jones County
Anson, Jones County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Site of emigrant trail, the frontier military road, and Fort Phantom Hill, founded in 1851 to guard the military road. County created 1858 from Bexar and Bosque counties. Named for Anson Jones (1798-1858), a veteran of San Jacinto, minister to the U.S., Secretary of State and last President of the Texas Republic. Phantom Hill, in 1858-1861 a Butterfield Overland Mail Station, was in 1861-1865 a Civil War patrol point, trying to curb frontier raids by Indians. The county was recreated in 1876, organized 1881. Anson (at first called Jones City) is county seat. (1965)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This corner of west Texas was crossed by an emigrant trail and a frontier military road guarded by Fort Phantom Hill, founded in 1851. The county was named for Anson Jones, a San Jacinto veteran and the last president of the Republic of Texas. Phantom Hill served as a Butterfield Overland Mail station in 1858-61 and then as a Civil War patrol point trying to curb frontier raids, before the county was fully organized in 1881 with Anson as its seat.
Why it matters
Jones County sits at the crossroads of Texas nationhood, transcontinental mail, and the hard frontier defense that shaped westward settlement.
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Related people
- · Anson Jones
Related events
- · Battle of San Jacinto
- · Butterfield Overland Mail
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Neinda Community
Hamlin, TX
After Jones County organized in 1881, ranchers settled west of Skinout Mountain and built a community first called Banner, renamed Neinda when its post office opened in 1890. A cemetery followed in 1891, but the town's fate was sealed in 1902 when the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient Railway bypassed it to create nearby Hamlin. Though Neinda peaked in the 1920s with a school, churches, a cotton gin, and stores, little survived into the twenty-first century beyond its cemetery, a 1905 church, and a 1927 store building.
Avoca Methodist Church
Avoca, TX
This congregation grew out of an 1887 brush-arbor camp meeting led by Methodist circuit rider J. H. Wiseman in the Spring Creek community. When the railroad created the new town of Avoca, the church moved with the people and completed its sanctuary in 1906. After a storm destroyed the original steeple, a 1953 belfry was added to hold two railroad locomotive bells—a fitting echo of the railroad that had summoned the town into being.
Stamford
Stamford, TX
Stamford was born in 1899 when the Swenson brothers, sons of Swedish immigrant Swante Magnus Swenson of the famed SMS ranches, donated land for a townsite along an extension of the Texas Central Railway. Railroad president Henry McHarg named it for his Connecticut hometown. With a boxcar post office, a bank, gins, a flour mill, and a foundry, the cotton-and-cattle town incorporated in 1901 and thrived through the 20th century, boosted by a 1935 oil strike and a World War II training field nearby.
Butterfield Mail and Stage Line
Tye, TX
Authorized by Congress in 1857, the Butterfield Overland Mail ran semi-weekly stagecoaches between Missouri and San Francisco, a 2,795-mile journey scheduled at 25 days. Backed by John Butterfield and express pioneer William G. Fargo, the $2 million venture employed some 2,000 people and strung stage stations about every 20 miles — including Fort Belknap, Fort Phantom Hill, and Fort Chadbourne in this region. Crossing Comanche-held country, the line used mules west of Fort Belknap because they tempted raiders less than horses; it operated from 1858 until 1861.