Savage
Leonard, Fannin County, Texas
Marker Inscription
William Hamilton "Uncle Billy" Savage (1822-1909) and his wife Elizabeth (Henson) moved to this area in 1869. Due to bad road conditions, they often stocked extra supplies and sold them to their neighbors. Their store became the center of Savage community (2.5 mi. E). The village had a doctor, blacksmith, cotton gin, stores, school, church, and a post office established in 1891. Savage began to decline after World War I (1917-18) when it was bypassed by construction of new roads in the area. Annual reunion activities are held in Leonard (3 mi. SW). (1980)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
After the Civil War, crossroads hamlets sprang up wherever a store could serve scattered farm families, and Savage community in Fannin County began just that way. William "Uncle Billy" Savage and his wife Elizabeth settled here in 1869 and, because the roads were so poor, kept extra goods to sell their neighbors; their store drew a doctor, blacksmith, cotton gin, school, church, and a post office by 1891. When new roads bypassed the village after World War I, Savage faded, and today its memory survives mainly in annual reunions.
Why it matters
Savage is a classic Texas ghost town, illustrating how the very transportation improvements that built rural America could just as quickly strand and empty the small communities they passed by.
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Related people
- · William Hamilton "Uncle Billy" Savage
- · Elizabeth Henson Savage
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Leonard
Leonard, TX
Settlers reached this corner of Fannin County in the 1840s and 50s, among them Solomon L. Leonard, a Confederate sympathizer who amassed 10,000 acres around Wildcat Thicket — a tangle of brush where fugitives and outlaws, and figures of the bloody Reconstruction-era Lee-Peacock feud, took cover. When the Missouri, Kansas & Texas Railroad arrived in 1880, Leonard's heirs platted a townsite and auctioned lots at a picnic on this very square, an event still held every year. A saloon, hotel, post office, newspaper, and school followed, and Leonard became the market town of a rich farming district.
Valley Creek
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In 1869, eleven Presbyterian families from New York migrated to this spot to establish a mission colony, organized by Howard L. Parmele and his brother-in-law Samuel F. B. Morse, the inventor of the telegraph. Named for a nearby stream, Valley Creek blossomed in the 1870s with a store, sawmill, cotton gin, school, hotel, and churches, and formally organized its Presbyterian congregation in 1875. But when the railroads bypassed it in 1880 the town withered, its businesses moving to nearby Leonard, until only a church and cemetery remained.
Portland
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Trenton
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