Townsite of Tarrant
Sulphur Springs, Hopkins County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Eldridge Hopkins, for whose family Hopkins County was named in 1846, donated this site for the county seat. Named for Gen. Edward H. Tarrant (1796-1858), Texas Ranger and Mexican war veteran, Tarrant Post Office was established in March 1847. A two-story frame courthouse was begun in 1851, but lack of funds delayed completion for two years. Tarrant quickly grew into a thriving frontier town with a tannery, steam mill, blacksmith shop, brick kiln, and hotel. After 1851, it had a Masonic Lodge and school. During the 1850s, a newspaper, the "Texas Star," began publication, and a Methodist college opened. Encircled by creeks, the town was difficult to reach in bad weather. The inconvenience of travel to Tarrant led Capt. Thomas M. Tolman in 1868 to transfer county records to Sulphur Springs, where Federal troops under his command were stationed after the Civil War to enforce Reconstruction laws. Despite local protests, county government remained there until civilian rule was restored in 1870. The return to Tarrant was brief, because the State Legislature in 1870 named Sulphur Springs as permanent county seat. Soon Tarrant began to decline. A rural community and old cemetery now mark the site of the first Hopkins County Seat.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Named for Texas Ranger and Mexican War veteran Gen. Edward H. Tarrant, this town became the first seat of Hopkins County, established on land donated by Eldridge Hopkins. Through the 1850s it thrived with a courthouse, tannery, steam mill, Masonic lodge, school, newspaper, and a Methodist college. But its creek-ringed site was hard to reach, and after Reconstruction-era officials moved county records to Sulphur Springs, the legislature made that town the permanent seat in 1870—leaving only a rural community and old cemetery to mark Tarrant.
Why it matters
Tarrant's rise and abandonment show how geography and the politics of the county-seat wars decided which frontier towns endured and which became ghost towns.
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Related people
- · Eldridge Hopkins
- · Edward H. Tarrant
- · Thomas M. Tolman
Related events
- · Reconstruction
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
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