Tannahill Homestead
Fort Worth, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In 1853 Scottish-born Robert Watt Tannahill (1821-1885) and his wife Mary Catherine (Smallwood) came here from Mississippi. In 1856 Tannahill patented this 320-acre tract on the Fort Worth-Azle Road. He used rocks from a nearby creek bank to construct this house in 1874. He served as a Tarrant County Judge and used the front room of this home for a Post Office from 1878 to 1885. This was also a stagecoach station for the first stop west of Fort Worth. The house was sold in 1894 to early pioneer William Thomas Tinsley (1858-1909) and in 1945 to Mrs. Verna Burns Stubbs. (1979)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Scottish-born Robert Watt Tannahill and his wife Mary Catherine came to Tarrant County from Mississippi in 1853 and patented a 320-acre tract on the Fort Worth-Azle Road. In 1874 Tannahill built a stone house from a nearby creek bank that served many roles at once — a county judge's residence, a post office from 1878 to 1885, and the first stagecoach stop west of Fort Worth. The homestead later passed to pioneer William Thomas Tinsley and others.
Why it matters
A frontier homestead that doubled as post office and stage stop shows how a single settler's house could become the civic and travel hub of an emerging Texas community.
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Related people
- · Robert Watt Tannahill
- · Mary Catherine Smallwood Tannahill
- · William Thomas Tinsley
Themes & tags
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