The Old Rock House
Sylvester vicinity, Fisher County, Texas
Marker Inscription
In the 1880s Andy Long (b. 1850) began acquiring his 10,300-acre spread known as the "OB" Ranch. His landholdings surrounded what is now the town of Sylvester. This one-room rock house, built in 1883, served as ranch headquarters. Long stayed here while he was in the area working his cattle but maintained a home for his family in Sweetwater (25 mi. SW). The Old Rock House at times also served as living quarters of the ranch foreman. Andy Long sold the "OB" Ranch in 1901 to the Compere brothers for the purpose of colonization. (1984)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
In the 1880s cattleman Andy Long assembled the 10,300-acre "OB" Ranch that surrounded the future town of Sylvester. This one-room rock house, built in 1883, served as ranch headquarters and sometimes as the foreman's quarters, while Long kept his family home 25 miles away in Sweetwater. He sold the ranch in 1901 to the Compere brothers for colonization.
Why it matters
The little rock house is a surviving relic of the open-range ranching era that gave way to farm colonization across West Texas.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Andy Long
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Woods Chapel Cemetery
Roby vicinity, TX
As settlers pushed into this corner of Fisher County in the early 1880s, a single frame building served as both school and church, and by 1884 a graveyard had begun — named for its first pastor, J. B. Woods. Among those resting here is the family of Henry Clay Lyon, a Tennessee-born veteran of the Republic of Texas army; of twenty-six marked graves, thirteen belong to infants and small children.
Newman Community and Cemetery
Sylvester vicinity, TX
Rancher Jim Newman, one of Fisher County's earliest settlers, established a spread here around 1879, and the community that grew nearby took his name when the county's first post office opened in 1881. By the early 1900s Newman had schools, churches, and a store, and its cemetery—set aside in 1906—holds sixteen veterans, including Civil War soldier R. L. Creswell. As population steadily declined, the churches and school closed one by one, leaving the still-active cemetery as the town's last trace.
Organization of Fisher County
Roby, TX
The Texas Legislature created Fisher County in 1876, but with no permanent settlers it was attached to neighboring counties for the courts. By 1885 enough people had arrived to organize the county, touching off a fierce rivalry between the rival townsites of Fisher, promoted by Wisconsin businessman E. D. Strang, and Roby, laid out by former Mississippi planters D. C. and M. L. Roby. An 1886 election made Roby the county seat, and with a courthouse underway the county's organization was complete.
Fisher County
Roby, TX
This region was crossed by an old Indian trail running from Mexico to the Texas frontier settlements, and in 1856 Colonel Robert E. Lee — then commanding the U.S. Second Cavalry, years before he led the Confederate army — campaigned against Native peoples here. Fisher County was carved from Young and Bexar territories, created in 1876 and organized in 1886, and named for Samuel Rhoads Fisher, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and Secretary of the Navy of the Republic. Its seat, Roby, took its name from local landowners.