Site of Reeves Post Office
Silverton, Briscoe County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(.5 mi. east) Since the railroad was 60 miles from this sparsely populated prairie, the establishment of Reeves post office opened a communication link for the early pioneers. Begun July 13, 1899, in the front room of postmaster Joseph H. Reeves' two-story frame home, the post office served 110 settlers. James U. Strickland bought the house and took over as postmaster August 24, 1905. He served until the facility closed on March 30, 1907, and mail was delivered to Silverton (8 mi. N). After Strickland sold the home to Forrest Leonard Weast in 1909, it was destroyed by fire. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
With the nearest railroad some sixty miles away, the opening of the Reeves post office in 1899 gave scattered High Plains pioneers a vital link to the outside world. It began in the front room of postmaster Joseph H. Reeves' two-story frame house and served 110 settlers before James U. Strickland took it over in 1905. The office closed in 1907, mail was rerouted to Silverton, and the old home later burned to the ground.
Why it matters
The little post office shows how mail service knit together the isolated homesteads of the Texas Panhandle, a lifeline of communication on the far edge of settlement.
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Related people
- · Joseph H. Reeves
- · James U. Strickland
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Baptist Church of Silverton
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Even before the town of Silverton was platted, Panhandle settlers gathered for a community Sunday school in a mercantile store and the county courthouse. Out of that early fellowship the First Baptist Church was organized with sixteen charter members, and by 1900 the congregation raised a modest one-room sanctuary. Over more than a century it grew alongside the town it helped found on the high plains of Briscoe County.
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Briscoe County
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