Plain Community
Houston County, Houston County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Led by members of the Conner, McKinney and Drennan families, this East Texas farming community was permanently settled in the 1850s. Named for the "Plain Folks" who lived here, the settlement included a school, church, grist mill, cotton gin, post office and this cemetery, which began in the mid-1850s on the Frederick Conner family land. Residents of the community farmed and worked for the nearby 4-C sawmill operation at the turn of the century. Although never recorded as a townsite, the Plain Community has survived as a reminder of early Houston County history.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Led by the Conner, McKinney, and Drennan families, this East Texas farming settlement took permanent root in the 1850s and took its name from the plain folks who worked its land. It grew to hold a school, church, grist mill, cotton gin, post office, and a cemetery begun on Conner family land, while many residents worked the nearby 4-C sawmill at the turn of the century. Though never platted as a town, the Plain Community endured as a living reminder of early Houston County.
Why it matters
It preserves the memory of the self-reliant farming communities that quietly settled East Texas, building full lives around the mill, the church, and the schoolhouse.
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Related people
- · Frederick Conner
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
William Preston and Rebecca Kate Conner House
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On land bought in 1852, W. P. "Press" and Rebecca Kate Conner built their home in 1891 from logs harvested on the property, a vernacular L-plan house later expanded with a second story and generations of additions. Press worked as a farmer and rancher while Kate served the surrounding community as its midwife. More than a century on, Conner descendants still own and care for the homestead.
Community of Tadmor
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Settlement in this stretch of dense East Texas pine forest began in the 1830s on land within the Mexican-era Joseph Vehlein Colony, and settlers named their community Tadmor after the biblical 'Tadmor in the Wilderness.' A post office ran from 1885 to 1914 and a school opened in 1889, while most early residents farmed until the timber industry became a major employer by the century's end. The Tadmor Baptist Church has anchored the site since 1900.
Ratcliff
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Around 1875 a thirty-two-wagon train of Georgia settlers reached this spot in the East Texas pineywoods, where Jess H. Ratcliff's sawmill drew still more families and a town took shape with stores, doctors, and a post office. Sold to lumber companies at the turn of the century, the mill grew into a vast operation that ran until 1917. When it closed, many residents drifted away, though the community hung on by turning to logging and other work.
Robert S. Patton Family Cemetery
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Robert S. Patton reached Texas in December 1834, received a land grant, and became one of Houston County's earliest Anglo settlers, raising thirteen children with his wife Louisa. This family graveyard holds six of those children, a relative whose 1860 grave is the oldest marked here, and the grave of a person the family enslaved. The last burial took place in 1898.