Roby
Roby, Fisher County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Located on land originally included in a land grant to Texas War for Independence veteran Thomas H. Cosby, the town of Roby was first platted in 1885. The land was purchased by D. C. and M. L. Roby of Mississippi, relatives of Cosby's second wife, Martha. The Robys hired Walton, Hill, and Walton, a Travis County law firm, to represent their interests, and instructed the attorneys to organize a town to be named county seat of Fisher County. On behalf of their clients, the attorneys donated land for churches, schools, a park, and a cemetery. Town lots were also given to settlers who would build homes within ninety days. In an election held in April 1886, Roby was declared the county seat. The first county court was held in a shed behind the V. H. Anderson House, which served as the town's first post office. A frame courthouse was built on the southwest corner of the town square and was replaced over the years by a succession of other structures. Schools, churches, and businesses were established as settlement in the town increased. Retaining its small town atmosphere, Roby remains a center of commerce for Fisher County. (1989)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
Roby is a textbook case of the county-seat contests that drove West Texas town-building, where donated lots and courthouse fights decided which settlements survived.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the mid-1880s, the rolling plains of West Texas were changing fast. Only a few years earlier, this was open range country where the buffalo herds had recently been hunted to near-extinction and the Comanche had been forced onto reservations. Cattlemen moved in first, and farmers and town builders came close behind. Across the region, new counties were being carved out on the map and then formally organized once enough people lived in them to run a local government.
Organizing a county meant choosing a county seat, and that choice was a big deal. The county seat got the courthouse, the court days, the lawyers, the land office business, and the steady flow of visitors that kept stores and hotels alive. A town that won could grow for generations. A town that lost often faded away. Across Texas and the wider West, rival townsites competed hard for the title, and Fisher County's organization in 1886 was part of that pattern.
Much of the land in this part of Texas traced back to grants the Republic and State of Texas had given to veterans of the Texas Revolution of 1835-36. Those grants often passed through heirs and family connections before anyone ever built on them, which is exactly how the ground under Roby changed hands.
People & events
The story of Roby starts with a soldier. Thomas H. Cosby had fought in the Texas War for Independence, and like many veterans he received a grant of land for his service. That land sat in what would become Fisher County. Through his second wife, Martha, the land came into the hands of her relatives, D. C. and M. L. Roby of Mississippi.
The Robys had a plan, and it was bigger than farming. They hired a Travis County law firm, Walton, Hill, and Walton, and told the attorneys to build a town that would become the county seat. The lawyers went to work in the classic frontier style. They platted the town in 1885 and gave away land for churches, schools, a park, and a cemetery. They also handed out town lots to settlers who agreed to build a home within ninety days. The goal was simple: fill the townsite with real residents fast, so it looked like the natural center of the county.
The strategy worked. In an election in April 1886, Roby was named county seat. Government began in the humblest way possible. The first county court met in a shed behind the V. H. Anderson House, which was also the town's first post office. A frame courthouse soon went up on the southwest corner of the square. Over the years it was replaced by a series of later buildings, while schools, churches, and businesses grew up around it.
Its place in the American story
Roby is a small-scale look at how much of the American West got its towns. Settlements didn't just appear. They were often planned, promoted, and fought over by landowners, lawyers, and speculators who knew a county seat would last. Free lots, donated church and school sites, and hurried home-building deadlines were common tools in that competition, and Roby used every one of them.
The town's roots also show how the Texas Revolution shaped the state's map long after the fighting was over. Land grants to veterans turned into a patchwork of titles that passed through families across state lines. Decades later, a Mississippi family ended up founding a West Texas town on ground first earned on a Texas battlefield.
Most of all, Roby is a reminder that the courthouse square was the heart of rural American life. In county seats across the country, the square was where people paid taxes, filed deeds, served on juries, and caught up on news. Roby has kept that role as a center of commerce for Fisher County well over a century after its founding.
If you visit
Start at the town square, since that's where Roby's story centers. The courthouse still anchors it, and you can picture the southwest corner where the first frame courthouse stood. It's worth remembering that county government here started out in a shed. The contrast between that and a permanent courthouse tells you how quickly the town settled in.
Roby is a small place, and its quiet pace is part of the appeal. Walk the streets around the square and look for the churches and older buildings. A lot of them sit on land the town's founders gave away to draw settlers. Around the edges of town, the wide, open plains show you how much room there was to fill in the 1880s, and why a head start mattered so much.
Roby works well as a stop on a slow drive across the West Texas plains, where county seats are often spread out along the back roads. Bring your curiosity, take your time, and keep an eye out for the local historical markers. Every little town nearby has its own founding story.
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
- · Thomas H. Cosby
- · D. C. Roby
- · M. L. Roby
Related events
- · 1886 Fisher County seat election
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.
Organization of Fisher County
Roby, TX
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.
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.