Site of Mail Relay Station
Brownfield, Terry County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(500 yards west) By 1903, W.J. (1858-1930) and Mary E. (1863-1958) French had built a two-story home near this site, and it was a stop for freighters from the Texas & Pacific Railroad. Freighter rigs usually consisted of two wagons drawn by several horses, and the Frenches offered a campground, water, hot meals and a horse pen. Cattle drovers also rested here on their way through the area. In 1905, the French home became a stop along a mail route from Lamesa, known then as Chicago, through Brownfield to Gomez, a 40-mile trip. The mail hacks also carried passengers. The mail service was discontinued in 1910 when the mail was rerouted. (1973, 2006)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
By 1903 the French family had built a two-story home on the West Texas plains that became a working waypoint of the freight economy. Teamsters hauling goods from the Texas & Pacific Railroad, along with cattle drovers passing through, found a campground, water, hot meals, and a horse pen here. From 1905 the home also served as a stop on the mail route linking Lamesa through Brownfield to Gomez, until the mail was rerouted and the service ended in 1910.
Why it matters
Before highways and rail reached the far plains, isolated homesteads doubled as the region's inns, freight stops, and post offices — the connective tissue of frontier commerce.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · W. J. French
- · Mary E. French
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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.
O'Donnell
O'Donnell, TX
Named for railroad promoter Tom J. O'Donnell, this Lynn County town sprang up in 1909 when the Santa Fe pushed a new line across the South Plains from Slaton toward Lamesa. Founders built a hotel and store, celebrated the first train with a Fourth of July picnic in 1910, and drew churches with free lots before incorporating in 1923. By the mid-20th century O'Donnell had become a dryland cotton center boasting what was briefly the world's largest gin—and the hometown of actor Dan Blocker.
Simpson Hotel
Seagraves, TX
When the railroad town of Seagraves was platted in 1917, Alice Jenkins built this two-story lodging as the Hotel Texan. R.P. and Emma Simpson, who first owned it in the early 1920s, bought it back in 1927 and reopened it under their own name. With its stucco exterior and simple detailing, the Simpson Hotel typified the modest hotels that served travelers in early twentieth-century West Texas until it closed in 1974.
Meadow Depot
Meadow, TX
Meadow began in 1904 on open land grazed by the L-7 Ranch, then moved in 1917 to meet the Santa Fe Railway line — settlers famously arriving in boxcars, livestock in one end and furniture in the other. A boxcar first served as the station until this depot, built in 1911 far to the northeast at White Deer, was moved here in 1923 and used until 1965. Preserved in a park in 1967, it survives as a relic of the town's railroad beginnings.