Townsite of Old Farmer
Farmer, Young County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Named for a missionary, Rev. William H. Farmer, who camped here 1877. Later he had a general store; first postmaster, 1878. Town once had a school, 2 churches, a newspaper, 3 doctors, 17 businesses, a Justice of the Peace Court. The old Farmer ranch house still stands.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Named for the Rev. William H. Farmer, a missionary who camped on this spot in 1877 and soon opened a general store and served as first postmaster, the little town of Farmer once bustled with a school, two churches, a newspaper, three doctors, seventeen businesses, and its own justice of the peace. Today the old Farmer ranch house is nearly all that remains. It is a classic North Texas town that flourished briefly and then faded.
Why it matters
Old Farmer's short life and near-total disappearance typify the countless small frontier towns whose fortunes rose and fell with the rural economy around them.
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Related people
- · William H. Farmer
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Farmer Cemetery
Loving, TX
In 1877 the Baptist preacher W.H. Farmer brought his family to this land and built the nucleus of a town — a store, a post office, a church, and a cemetery whose first burials date to 1880. Officially platted in 1894, Farmer grew to some 150 residents with businesses, three churches, a Masonic lodge, and a baseball team, holding on through floods and droughts until World War II drew its people away to military service and city work. The families who remained still tend the burial ground that keeps the vanished town's memory.
Hawkins Chapel
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In 1876 S. J. Hawkins brought his family to the Young County frontier, and kin and neighbors soon gathered around his homestead to form a pioneer community. A school rose in 1879, a summer brush-arbor camp meeting began in 1882, and a Methodist chapel followed in 1884, with a cemetery taking its first burial in 1889. The school and church eventually closed, but descendants still gather each summer beside the cemetery that endures.
Site of Cottonwood Spring
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A lone cottonwood and a dependable spring made this spot a vital oasis on the nineteenth-century Texas frontier, its ground still scarred by wagon ruts. In 1849 Captain Randolph B. Marcy camped here while mapping a road for California gold-seekers, and over the next decade the spring watered soldiers establishing Fort Belknap, surveyors scouting Indian reservations, and the Butterfield Overland Mail. Rangers and cavalry under "Rip" Ford and Earl Van Dorn also staged here before riding north to fight Comanche raiders.
Little Salt Creek Indian Fight
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