Site of Buck Creek Stage Stand
Childress, Childress County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Established in 1882 by Frank Chriss. A stop on the mail route from Wichita Falls to Tascosa. Abandoned in 1886 after the Ft. Worth and Denver Railroad reached this region. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Frank Chriss established the Buck Creek Stage Stand in 1882 as a stop on the mail route running from Wichita Falls to Tascosa. Such stands offered rest and relay for the coaches that carried mail and passengers across the still-open plains. Within a few years the Fort Worth and Denver Railroad reached the region, and the stage stand was abandoned in 1886.
Why it matters
It captures the brief era of stagecoach travel on the Texas frontier and how quickly the railroad rendered it obsolete.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Frank Chriss
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Trinity Church of Quanah
Quanah, TX
Episcopal worship came to Quanah in 1887, when missionary bishop Alexander C. Garrett preached to a handful of the faithful in a schoolroom. The congregation gained land in 1890 from railroad developer G. M. Dodge, whose Fort Worth & Denver City line was bringing the frontier town to life. The frame Victorian Gothic church was finally consecrated in 1913. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark, 1976.
Hardeman County Courthouse
Quanah, TX
Hardeman County was created in 1858 but not organized until 1884, when growth allowed a formal government; the county seat moved from Margaret to Quanah in 1890 after the Fort Worth and Denver City Railway laid out the new townsite. A 1906 bond funded a grand replacement courthouse, designed by architect R. H. Stuckey with a domed cupola, Ionic columns, and glazed tan brick over an Indiana-limestone basement. Completed in 1908, the Neoclassical building has anchored county government and downtown Quanah ever since.
Old Mobeetie Trail
Hedley, TX
The Old Mobeetie Trail followed a path far older than any map—worn over centuries by migrating bison and the Native hunters who followed them across the Texas Panhandle. In the 1870s it carried the first dugout-dwelling settlers, buffalo hunters supplying the hide trade, and soldiers to Fort Elliott, while the frontier town of Mobeetie briefly served as county seat for 28 counties. As the Rath and later the Jones and Plummer trails, it became a great artery for longhorn drives to northern railheads before farming 'nesters' finally settled the land along it.
Cottle County Courthouse
Paducah, TX
Cottle County was created in 1876 and named for George Washington Cottle, who died at the Alamo, though settlers did not organize it until 1892, choosing a central townsite they named Paducah after one settler's Kentucky home. After two earlier courthouses, the county broke ground in 1929 on a striking four-story Art Deco building by the firm of Voelcker and Dixon. Its stepped masses, carved eagles, and figures of justice and liberty have drawn comparisons to an Egyptian temple.