Organization of Fisher County
Roby, Fisher County, Texas
Marker Inscription
When the Texas Legislature created Fisher County in 1876, there were no permanent settlements in the area. As a result, the county was linked with Shackelford and Nolan Counties for judicial purposes. By 1885, enough settlers had moved into the area to warrant official organization of the county. Part of this organization was the selection of a county seat, a matter that caused much debate. In 1885 two townsites were laid out and proposed as county seats. Businessman E. D. Strang, a native of Wisconsin, organized and promoted the town of Fisher, while two former Mississippi plantation owners, D. C. and M. L. Roby, inherited land on which they laid out the townsite of Roby. Fierce competition began between the adherents of each site. When the proponents of Roby felt they had enough votes, they presented a petition for election to the Nolan County Commissioners Court. Although adherents of Fisher contested the petition as faulty, they could not prove their accusations as correct. An election held in April 1886 determined Roby to be the county seat. As newly elected officials attended to business and construction began on a courthouse, tempers settled, and the organization of Fisher County was complete. (1983)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
The Texas Legislature created Fisher County in 1876, but with no permanent settlers it was attached to neighboring counties for the courts. By 1885 enough people had arrived to organize the county, touching off a fierce rivalry between the rival townsites of Fisher, promoted by Wisconsin businessman E. D. Strang, and Roby, laid out by former Mississippi planters D. C. and M. L. Roby. An 1886 election made Roby the county seat, and with a courthouse underway the county's organization was complete.
Why it matters
County-seat wars like this one played out across the settling West Texas plains, where the choice of a courthouse town could make or unmake a community's future.
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Related people
- · E. D. Strang
- · D. C. Roby
- · M. L. Roby
Related events
- · Fisher County seat election (1886)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fisher County
Roby, TX
This region was crossed by an old Indian trail running from Mexico to the Texas frontier settlements, and in 1856 Colonel Robert E. Lee — then commanding the U.S. Second Cavalry, years before he led the Confederate army — campaigned against Native peoples here. Fisher County was carved from Young and Bexar territories, created in 1876 and organized in 1886, and named for Samuel Rhoads Fisher, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and Secretary of the Navy of the Republic. Its seat, Roby, took its name from local landowners.
Roby
Roby, TX
Roby took shape on land once granted to Texas independence veteran Thomas H. Cosby, first platted in 1885 by D. C. and M. L. Roby of Mississippi. Determined to make their town the seat of Fisher County, the Robys' attorneys donated land for churches, schools, a park, and a cemetery, and offered lots to anyone who would build within ninety days. Roby won the county-seat election in April 1886, holding its first court in a shed and later raising a succession of courthouses.
First United Methodist Church of Roby
Roby, TX
The oldest active church in Fisher County, this Methodist congregation dates to the county's founding years, meeting first in a settler's home under a circuit-riding preacher and organizing formally in 1886. Before its first sanctuary rose in 1889, worshipers gathered in the county courthouse. Successive church buildings have stood on the same site given by the town's founding families.
Roby Cemetery
Roby, TX
When Fisher County was still raw frontier in the 1880s, the brothers D. C. and M. L. Roby bought thousands of acres, platted a townsite, and set aside land—already holding an 1884 grave—as a free public cemetery. For generations it served as the county's principal burial ground, gathering pioneer families, Civil War veterans, and "Aunt" Abbie Alborn, a formerly enslaved woman who reached Texas from Tennessee in 1886. The graveyard grew from seven acres to twenty-one as the community it served took root.