Site of Joe T. and Laura Hamilton Home
Brownfield, Terry County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1885, Joseph Thomas Hamilton (1856-1932) married Laura Letha Franklin (1867-1936) in Franklin County, Texas. Natives of southern U.S. states, the couple moved west with their first three children and settled here in 1902, before Terry County was organized. In 1907, they established a home near this site. Joe was a stock farmer, carpenter, mail carrier and livery worker, and he was one of three men contracted to build the county's first courthouse. Laura, in addition to managing a large household, often assisted neighbors as nurse and midwife. Today, ths site is a link to the early pioneers who built Brownfield and surrounding communities. (2005)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Married in East Texas in 1885, Joseph Thomas and Laura Letha Hamilton moved west with their young children and settled here in 1902, before Terry County was even organized. Joe worked as a stock farmer, carpenter, mail carrier, and one of three men who built the county's first courthouse, while Laura ran a large household and served neighbors as nurse and midwife. Their home near this site anchored an early Brownfield-area community.
Why it matters
The Hamiltons represent the versatile pioneer families whose many trades — and unpaid frontier nursing — built the towns and institutions of the West Texas plains.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Joseph Thomas Hamilton
- · Laura Letha Franklin Hamilton
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church of Brownfield
Brownfield, TX
Before it had a church of its own, Brownfield's early settlers gathered for services led by circuit-riding preachers in a local schoolhouse. In 1906 residents organized a Baptist congregation, and by 1910 they had a sanctuary on West Hill Street — its lumber paid for by the Woman's Missionary Society and the building raised by the men themselves. The growing congregation moved to a new site in the 1920s and expanded its mission work at home and abroad.
The Oak Grove
Brownfield, TX
On the otherwise treeless High Plains near present Brownfield, a stand of stubby "shin oaks" grew where no woodland should have been. That oddity made the grove a recognizable waypoint for the pioneers and freighters who crossed the open country, a natural signpost in a landscape with few of them.
Brownfield Cemetery
Brownfield, TX
Brownfield's first public burial ground began in 1904 with the death of 19-year-old Jessie Hill, on land that soon belonged to M. V. Brownfield. Through two world wars and the Great Depression the cemetery fell into neglect, then reflected a new chapter as Hispanic farm workers settled the area in the 1940s and 1950s. A 1980 reorganization revived it, and by 1999 it held more than 2,000 graves.
City of Brownfield
Brownfield, TX
Brownfield began in 1903 as a promoter's gamble on the open plains of Terry County, laid out by developers W. G. Hardin and A. F. Small—famously using only a hundred feet of wire to measure a townsite out of raw pasture. To draw settlers they offered a free lot to every voter in the county, and a store, hotel, and school quickly followed. In 1904 the fledgling town narrowly beat neighboring Gomez for the county seat, securing its future.