Mount Blanco Community
Cone, Crosby County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Named for tall white mesa that was a landmark on Mackenzie Trail, surveyed in 1871 by U.S. Cavalry scouting for Indians on the frontier. Near the mesa in 1877, frontiersman Henry Clay Smith (1836-1912) built a two-story stone house for speculators Charles Tasker of Philadelphia and Lord Jamison of Ireland. This was the first permanent homestead in South Plains Region. Smith also brought in cattle for Tasker, and had to accept house as his compensation when Tasker failed in business. In the fall of 1877, Smith moved his family here; nearest neighbor was 50 miles east. The home became a way-station for prospectors, and Smith encouraged many settlers such as Paris Cox, the Quaker founder of Estacado (22 miles West). Mount Blanco Post Office opened in September 1879, with Mrs. Smith (Elizabeth Boyle, 1848-1925) as postmaster. In 1886, Smith led in organizing Crosby County. This area prospered, and by 1890 had a school. Farming largely replaced ranching after 1900. Post office closed in 1916. School consolidated with Crosbyton in 1949. Smith's stone house (1 mile North) burned in 1952. Village of Mount Blanco (4 miles northeast) lost its last store about 1956, its church in 1965. Only a cotton gin and clubhouse now (1975) remain as public buildings in Mount Blanco. (1975)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Named for a white mesa that guided travelers on the Mackenzie Trail, Mount Blanco began in 1877 when frontiersman Henry Clay Smith built a two-story stone house — the first permanent homestead in the South Plains — after speculators failed to pay him and handed over the building instead. With his nearest neighbor 50 miles away, Smith's home became a way-station for prospectors and a magnet for settlers, and he later helped organize Crosby County in 1886. The community rose with a post office, school, and church, then faded through the 20th century until only a cotton gin and clubhouse remained.
Why it matters
Mount Blanco traces the full life cycle of a frontier settlement — from first homestead to near-ghost town — on the newly opened Texas South Plains.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Until the 1870s, the South Plains of Texas was Comanche country. It was a vast, nearly treeless tableland at the edge of the Llano Estacado, cut by canyons and grazed by enormous buffalo herds. Few Anglo-Americans had settled there, and the U.S. Army treated it as a frontier to be scouted and controlled.
That changed quickly. In the early 1870s the Army sent cavalry columns into the region, and the trails they cut, like the Mackenzie Trail named on this marker, became some of the first routes across it. By the end of the Red River War in the mid-1870s, the Comanche and their allies had been forced onto reservations, and commercial hunters had nearly wiped out the buffalo. The land was suddenly open to ranchers, speculators, and settlers.
The tall white mesa that gave Mount Blanco its name was a natural signpost in this empty country. On a landscape this flat and open, a landmark you could see from miles away was worth a great deal. It's fitting that the first permanent homestead in the region rose near it.
People & events
The story centers on Henry Clay Smith, a frontiersman born in 1836. In 1877 he built a two-story stone house near the mesa for two outside investors, Charles Tasker of Philadelphia and Lord Jamison of Ireland. Smith also brought in cattle for Tasker. Then Tasker's business failed, and Smith had to take the house itself as his pay. In the fall of 1877 he moved his family into it. Their nearest neighbor lived about 50 miles to the east.
The Smith home soon became a way-station for prospectors and travelers crossing the plains, and Smith actively encouraged others to settle nearby. One of them was Paris Cox, the Quaker who founded Estacado about 22 miles west. In September 1879 a post office opened at Mount Blanco, and Smith's wife, Elizabeth Boyle Smith, served as postmaster. For scattered settlers, that office was their link to the rest of the country. In 1886 Henry Smith led the effort to organize Crosby County.
Then came the long fade. The area prospered, gained a school by 1890, and shifted from ranching to farming after 1900. But the post office closed in 1916, the school merged with Crosbyton's in 1949, and the old stone house burned in 1952. The village lost its last store around 1956 and its church in 1965. When the marker went up in 1975, only a cotton gin and a clubhouse remained as public buildings.
Its place in the American story
Mount Blanco shows the whole life of a frontier settlement in one place. It began with military scouting and the removal of Native peoples. A single family homestead followed, then a post office, a county, a school, and farms. After that came the slow consolidation that emptied so many small rural communities in the twentieth century.
It also shows who opened the West. Distant investors, here a Philadelphian and an Irish lord, put up money and often lost it, while the people who stayed did the actual settling. Elizabeth Smith's role as postmaster is a reminder that frontier women ran key institutions, not just households.
The ending matters too. As farming mechanized, roads improved, and schools consolidated, communities like Mount Blanco lost the reasons that had made them necessary. Across the Great Plains, hundreds of towns followed a similar path, and Mount Blanco is a well-documented example.
If you visit
Come here for the landscape as much as for buildings. The marker sits in open South Plains country, and the story makes most sense when you stand under the big sky and picture a stone house with no neighbor for 50 miles. Look for the pale mesa that gave the place its name. It's the same landmark that guided cavalry and travelers in the 1870s.
The marker itself tells you that the Smith stone house, about a mile north, burned in 1952, and that the village of Mount Blanco lies a few miles northeast. Don't expect a restored pioneer site. You're visiting the spot where something began and the quiet that remains. Much of the surrounding land is likely private farm and ranch land, so explore from public roads.
The Crosbyton area fits well into a road trip across the Texas South Plains, especially paired with the canyon country at the edge of the Caprock. Bring water, fill your tank in a larger town, and allow time for back roads. The emptiness here is the history.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · Henry Clay Smith
- · Elizabeth Boyle Smith
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Battle of Blanco Canyon
Floydada, TX
By the 18th century the Comanche had made the canyons and plains of what became Floyd County their stronghold, dominating trade and warfare across Texas after pushing rival tribes south. In October 1871, Colonel Ranald Mackenzie led U.S. cavalry, guided by Tonkawa scouts, against the Kotsoteka and Quahadi bands who refused reservation life. In Blanco Canyon, Quanah Parker's warriors struck first and drove off the soldiers' horses; the fighting wounded both Mackenzie and Lieutenant Carter, and though the campaign frustrated the army, it began the destruction of Comanche power on the Southern Plains.
Coronado in Blanco Canyon
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Between 1540 and 1542, the Spanish conquistador Francisco Vazquez de Coronado led a vast expedition—more than a thousand people and thousands of animals—north from Mexico chasing rumors of golden cities. Their exact path across the southern plains has long puzzled historians, since surviving accounts are brief and contradictory. In the spring of 1541 the company camped in a wide canyon, and chain mail, crossbow points, and other European artifacts later unearthed around Blanco Canyon helped archaeologists confirm that Coronado passed this way.
Battle of the Freshwater Fork of the Brazos
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In September 1871 Colonel Ranald S. Mackenzie led the 4th U.S. Cavalry from Fort Griffin against Comanche who had refused to move to their reservation. Near the mouth of Blanco Canyon on October 11, Comanche warriors surprised the camp on the Freshwater Fork of the Brazos, stampeding dozens of horses and sparking a running pursuit of more than forty miles in which two Comanche and a soldier were killed and both Mackenzie and Lt. Robert Carter were wounded. The clash marked the first meeting of Mackenzie with Quanah Parker and the Quahadi Comanche—and the beginning of the end of Comanche dominance in the Panhandle, culminating in the Red River War of 1874.
Main Supply Camp on Historic Mackenzie Trail
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