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.
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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.