Martin County
Stanton, Martin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
On lower great plains of west Texas. Formed from Young and Bexar territories. Created Aug. 21, 1876, and organized Nov. 4, 1884. Named for Wyly Martin, member of Austin's colony and Texas patriot. County seat established by the first commissioners court which authorized construction of courthouse in Stanton (then called Mariensfield). Early C. C. Slaughter ranch headquarters, 12 miles northwest of Stanton at Mustang Spring, best campsite west of Big Spring. Economy based on grain sorghum, cotton farming; cattle ranching; petroleum. (1936) Formed from Young and Bexar territories created August 21, 1876. Organized November 4, 1884. Named in honor of Wyly Martin 1776-1842. An alcalde in Austin's colony member of the consultation in 1835, soldier in the Texas revolution, member of the Texas congress. County seat, Marienfeld, 1884; Stanton since 1890.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Carved from older territorial lands and created in 1876, Martin County spreads across the lower Great Plains of West Texas and was organized in 1884. It honors Wyly Martin, a member of Austin's colony, official of the early settlements, and soldier of the Texas Revolution. Ranching giant C. C. Slaughter kept headquarters nearby at Mustang Spring, prized as the best campsite west of Big Spring, and the county's fortunes have since ridden on cotton, grain sorghum, cattle, and oil.
Why it matters
It marks how West Texas was stitched into the map through frontier ranching and the naming of counties for the founders of the Texas Republic.
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Related people
- · Wyly Martin
- · C. C. Slaughter
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Old Martin County Jail
Stanton, TX
When Martin County organized in 1884, its seat was a windswept German-colony settlement called Marienfeld, soon renamed Stanton. The county's 1885 courthouse held the original cell block, and when that building was demolished after a 1908 bond election, the cells were preserved as the heart of this new rock jail — which even included living quarters for the sheriff's family. It later found gentler second lives as a library and museum.
Marienfeld
Stanton, TX
In 1881 five German Catholic settlers from Kansas pitched their tents beside the new Texas & Pacific Railroad on the West Texas plains. They renamed the railroad stop "Marienfeld," German for "Field of Mary," and the fledgling colony soon became the seat of newly organized Martin County, with its first commissioners court meeting in 1884. Later Protestant influence gave the town the name it still carries, Stanton.
Connell House
Stanton, TX
Put up in 1882 as a two-room dwelling for Carmelite priests, this was the very first building in Stanton. After their 1902 marriage, Dennis and Mary Connell made it their family home, and it grew room by room as their eight children arrived, gaining porches, gables, and additions through the 1920s and 30s. When the last Connell daughter died in 1990, the much-expanded house passed to the local museum.
Site of St. Joseph's Church
Stanton, TX
In 1881, Carmelite monks set out to plant a monastery and a German Catholic colony on the West Texas plains, raising the first Catholic church between Fort Worth and El Paso. Adobe-and-brick buildings followed—the monastery in 1884, St. Joseph's Church in 1885—and Sisters of Divine Providence, then Sisters of Mercy, ran schools and a convent academy here. The Carmelites disbanded in 1897, and a tornado in 1938 ended the sisters' work, leaving only ruins, a dormitory, and the cemetery.