R. E. (Bob) Stokes Homestead
Leonard, Fannin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1895 R. E. (Bob) Stokes (1865-1944), his wife Ada, and their children migrated from Mississippi to Hickory Creek community in Fannin County. Stokes purchased this farm in 1901 and erected this house the following year. Nearby there was a log barn and a two-room workers' house.The family had ten children. Stokes served as trustee of the Bralley School and helped erect a new schoolhouse and Bethel Baptist Church building. Peddlers traveled dirt roads which Stokes helped maintain with a drag hitched to four mules.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In 1895 Bob Stokes moved his family from Mississippi to the Hickory Creek community of Fannin County, part of the great post-war stream of Southern farmers seeking fresh cotton land in Texas. He bought this farm in 1901, raised a two-story house and ten children, and put his shoulder to the everyday work of building a community — serving as a school trustee, helping erect a schoolhouse and Baptist church, and dragging the dirt roads smooth behind four mules.
Why it matters
The Stokes homestead captures the ordinary labor of turn-of-the-century rural Texas, where a single farm family's church, school, and road-building sustained the fabric of frontier settlement.
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Related people
- · R. E. (Bob) Stokes
- · Ada Stokes
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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