Rath City
Aspermont, Stonewall County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(4 mi. SW) In 1876 during an international demand for buffalo hides, Charles Rath (1836-1902) founded this town. He opened the Rath, Lee & Reynolds Mercantile Store. He sold supplies and bought the hides from the buffalo hunters. On one occasion in 1877 there were 1,100,000 hides at his trading post. The town, also known as "Reynolds City", boasted a corral, hide yard, saloon and restaurant. Skins stretched across poles sheltered the hunters. A tower beside the corral was used as a lookout to ward off Indian attacks. By 1879, the buffalo disappeared and the town vanished. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
During the buffalo-hide boom of the 1870s, Charles Rath founded this trading town in 1876 and opened a mercantile store to supply hunters and buy their skins. At its peak in 1877, an astonishing 1,100,000 hides were piled at his post, and the rough camp—also called Reynolds City—grew a corral, saloon, restaurant, and a lookout tower to watch for raids. When the buffalo were gone by 1879, the town vanished with them.
Why it matters
Rath City is a stark monument to the buffalo-hide trade that stripped the southern plains of its herds within a few years, hastening both a commercial boom-and-bust and the displacement of Native peoples who depended on the bison.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Charles Rath
Related events
- · Buffalo-hide trade
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Site of Hitson Community
Rotan vicinity, TX
Ranchers John and William Hittson were among the first to settle here around 1870, and the community that grew near their homes took their name. A post office, school, store, and church followed, and oil discovered after World War I brought new income. Yet the labor drain of the Second World War left its small family farms unable to survive, and by the century's end only a few homes and a cemetery remained.
Texas Cowboy Reunion Oldtimers' Association
Stamford, TX
Founded in 1930 alongside the Texas Cowboy Reunion, this association gathered aging cowhands—335 of them who had worked the range before 1895—to preserve the customs of the people who raised longhorns and endured droughts and freezes on the open range. Its early ranks even included Will Rogers, publisher Amon Carter, and bandleader Paul Whiteman. A donated bull funded a bunkhouse and roundup hall, and the annual reunion still features chuckwagon meals, square dancing, and what's billed as the world's largest amateur cowboy show.
Stamford
Stamford, TX
Stamford was born in 1899 when the Swenson brothers, sons of Swedish immigrant Swante Magnus Swenson of the famed SMS ranches, donated land for a townsite along an extension of the Texas Central Railway. Railroad president Henry McHarg named it for his Connecticut hometown. With a boxcar post office, a bank, gins, a flour mill, and a foundry, the cotton-and-cattle town incorporated in 1901 and thrived through the 20th century, boosted by a 1935 oil strike and a World War II training field nearby.
Swenson Ranch Commissary
Stamford, TX
Around 1900, the Texas Central Railroad and the SMS Ranch teamed up to create the town of Stamford, and this stout Lueders-stone building rose beside the tracks to serve it. It was the central supply depot for the four sprawling Swenson ranches of west Texas — Tongue River, Spur, Throckmorton and Flat Top. Goods came off the trains and waited here until ranch foremen rode into town to collect provisions and swap news.