Majors Home
Colorado City, Mitchell County, Texas
Marker Inscription
One of first brick houses here. Built 1883 by Mr. and Mrs. J.P. Hodgson, son-in-law and daughter of Gen. Tom Green, Texas hero. Later the home of Winfield Scott, millionaire rancher, and W.T. Scott, a promoter, T. & P. Railroad. Owned since 1902 by Dr. Majors' Family. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1966,
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Built in 1883, this was one of Colorado City's first brick houses, raised by J. P. Hodgson and his wife — a daughter of Texas hero General Tom Green. It later sheltered a succession of West Texas notables, including millionaire rancher Winfield Scott and a promoter of the Texas & Pacific Railroad. Dr. Majors' family has owned it since 1902.
Why it matters
A durable brick home on the raw West Texas plains signaled permanence and ambition, and its roster of owners maps the ranching and railroad money that built the region.
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Related people
- · J. P. Hodgson
- · Tom Green
- · Winfield Scott
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Buffalo Trails
Colorado City, TX
These preserved tracks come from an ancient buffalo trail, one of the deep grooves that thundering herds pounded single-file into the West Texas ground as they moved between grazing grounds and watering holes. Migratory routes ran from the Rio Grande to Canada, and buffalo hunters like the Mooar brothers killed thousands here in the 1870s for hides, tongues, and meat. Native peoples had long followed these paths to the herds, and later explorers and railroad engineers built roads and rail lines along the very same routes.
Mitchell County
Colorado City, TX
Mitchell County was carved out of West Texas territory in 1876 and organized in 1881 when the railroad arrived, turning Colorado City into a booming supply hub known as the region's 'Mother City.' Named for War for Independence veterans Asa and Eli Mitchell, the county blended cattle, sheep, and later oil into its economy. Its landmarks — a former Comanche village site and Seven Wells, remembered as a last buffalo watering hole — mark the transition from Indigenous and frontier land to a railroad-era ranching center.
The Founding of Colorado City
Colorado City, TX
Born in 1880 where the Texas & Pacific Railroad crossed the Colorado River, Colorado City boomed from a single dirt-floored tent store into the largest town between Fort Worth and El Paso, the shipping hub for the vast cattle ranches of West Texas and New Mexico. In its wild first decade it reputedly had more millionaires and more saloons than any other Texas town, kept in check by a company of Texas Rangers who made every man check his guns. Drought and the closing of the open range dimmed the glory, but the settlement earned its title as the 'Mother City of West Texas.'
Texas & Pacific Railway
Colorado City, TX
When the Texas & Pacific Railway pushed through this valley in 1880, it turned a scatter of tents and dugouts into the "Cattle Capital of West Texas." Ranchers like Charles Goodnight and the great XIT had already trailed herds into a country where the last buffalo were vanishing and Texas Rangers guarded against raids. By April 1881 the railhead served some 350 residents with a county government, school, and newspaper, and soon shipped out thousands of cattle and freighted in the barbed wire and windmills that fenced the open range.