Moran
Moran, Shackelford County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Pioneers came to this area as early as the 1860s. During the Civil War (1861-65), they built the temporary fortress settlement of Mugginsville on Deep Creek. At one time, a branch of the western cattle trail passed nearby. Population increased after the arrival of the Texas Central Railroad in 1881. The town of Moran was established by Swope Hull, who operated a grocery store at the rail crossing on Deep Creek in 1883. He was postmaster of the community's first post office, called "Hulltown," which opened August 29, 1883. Hull bought 160 acres between Post Oak and Deep creeks and platted a townsite in March 1884. Most of the property was bought by I. B. (BEM) Scott, who sold his interests in 1890 to M. D. Bray (1845-1926), a prominent local merchant and landowner. The town's name was changed in 1890 to "Hicks" and in 1892 to "Moran" for Texas Central Railroad president John J. Moran. By the 1890s, the community had a school and Baptist, Church of Christ, Cumberland Presbyterian, and Methodist congregations. A newspaper was begun in 1895 and bank in 1902. Incorporated in 1919, Moran was a shipping point for drilling supplies during the oil and gas boom of 1910-30. Today the area's economy is based on farming, ranching, and oil and gas production. (1976)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Settlers reached this rugged West Texas country in the 1860s and, during the Civil War, built the temporary fortress settlement of Mugginsville on Deep Creek for protection. A branch of the western cattle trail once passed nearby, but the town truly took shape after the Texas Central Railroad arrived in 1881; Swope Hull opened a store and the 'Hulltown' post office in 1883, and the community was renamed Moran in 1892 for a railroad president. Incorporated in 1919, it boomed as a supply point during the oil and gas rush of 1910–30.
Why it matters
Moran's arc from frontier fort to cattle-trail stop to railroad town to oil-boom shipping point compresses the whole nineteenth- and twentieth-century story of West Texas into a single place.
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Related people
- · Swope Hull
- · John J. Moran
- · M. D. Bray
Related events
- · Arrival of the Texas Central Railroad (1881)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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Granville E. Waters
Moran, TX
Ohio-born Granville Eades Waters came to Texas in 1871 and settled in Shackelford County, where he and his wife raised five sons amid the hardships of frontier life—the nearest post office days away at Fort Griffin. Known by the courtesy title of "Colonel," he made his name introducing Hereford cattle to the region in 1885 and rose to lead the American Hereford Cattle Breeders' Association. In his later years he turned to oil and gas leasing, scouting for the Texas Company and helping open the county to petroleum exploration.