Historicalindigenoussites

Historicalindigenoussites Documenting Indigenous history and historical sites across the Americas through field research, journalism and writings.

Boots on the ground‼️

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06/08/2026

Lower West Fork mets the Clear Fork Trinity River 🌊

06/08/2026

Ripley Allen Arnold (1817-1853)

Ripley Allen Arnold, U.S. Army officer was appointed to West Point in 1834-Arnold was brevetted major in 1846 for his role in the Mexican-American War.

He served under General William Jenkins Worth through the battle of Monterre y He was given, command of, Company of the Second Dragoons after the Mexican American War and ordered to the Northern frontier of Texas to establish a military post “at or near the confluence of the West and the Clear Forks of the Trinity River" in May of 1849, On June 6, 1849 he established a military post on the Trinity River and named it Fort Worth after General Worth.

Major Arnold was shot and killed at Fort Graham, a military post 60 miles south of Fort Worth, On September 6, 1853. In 1855 Col. M. T. Johnson brought the major's remains to Fort Worth to be reburied near his two children at Pioneers Rest Cemetery in Fort Worth's first Masonic burial ceremony.

06/08/2026

Sunny South Dallas Wall Mural 🎨🔥

06/07/2026

FIFA ⚽️ ‘26 wall mural in Dallas, Texas

06/07/2026

Oakland Cemetery 🪦

📍 South Dallas in Dallas County, Texas — The American South (West South Central)

In 1891, O.S. Riggen (1852-1891) purchased 60 acres in rural Dallas County, outside the city limits, with the vision to establish a rural garden cemetery. Riggen succeeded in interesting others to join the venture, but died before his vision could materialize. That same year, Oakland Cemetery Company incorporated and, in 1892, purchased 60 acres each from Z.E. Coombes and W.B. Gano; W.H. Lewis; and Joe Weil and W.N. Coe. Landscape architect Benjamin Grove (1823-1915) designed and mapped 120 of the cemetery’s 180 acres. John McCoy purchased the first lot for his wife, Mary Alice McCoy, on November 11, 1892. McCoy also had six family members reinterred here.

Oakland Cemetery Company sold and acquired land, causing the borders to be redrawn several times. The company dissolved and Oakland Cemetery Lot Owners Association (OCLOA) was incorporated as a non-profit in 1924. Notable burials include those of Dallas Mayors Henry Ervay (1834-1911), Winship C. Connor (1849-1921), Franklin Pierce Holland (1852-1928), William Meredith Holland (1875-1966), and Louis Blaylock (1849-1932), Lieutenant Governor Barnett “Barney” Gibbs (1850-1904), U.S. Representatives Edwin Le Roy Antony (1852-1913) and James Andrew Beall (1866-1929). The site contains several impressive monuments and gravestones, including an obelisk measuring 42 feet 7 inches for J.F. Strickland, a Texas interurban builder, and a memorial of Georgian marble for Louis A. Pires, philanthropist and senior director of City National Bank of Dallas. Amongst the 27,000 interments are numerous gravestones with fraternal markings, such as Masons, Shriners, Knights of Pythias, and Woodmen of the World. Today, the cemetery serves as a reminder of early Dallas and the final resting place of generations of citizens.
Historic Texas Cemetery - 2022


Erected 2025 by Texas Historical Commission. (Marker Number 23911.)

06/06/2026

Dry Creek Cemetery 🪦

📍 Terrell in Kaufman County, Texas — The American South (West South Central)

Inscription ⬇️
Named for a nearby ravine, this burial ground originally served the community of Turner's Point. Located on the stage road between Shreveport, Louisiana, and Dallas, the settlement was established by Elisha Turner in 1845. In the 1870s the town was moved to a new location (1.5 miles southeast) and renamed Poetry. The earliest marked grave at this site is that of Samuel Key (1840-1871). Now closed for burials, the cemetery has 279 marked graves bearing names of the English, Scottish, Irish, and Welsh pioneer settlers of the area.

Erected 1980 by Texas Historical Commission. (Marker Number 8506.)

06/06/2026

Passing through Stephenville, Texas 🚙💨

Stephenville, the county seat of Erath County, is on the North Bosque River at the junction of U.S. highways 67, 377, and 281, 100 miles southwest of Dallas. It is named for John M. Stephen, who settled there in 1854 and donated the land for the townsite laid out by George B. Erath when the county was organized in 1856. Stephen donated an additional fifty acres of timber to promote the development of the community and became the first postmaster in 1857.

By 1858, when the population had grown to 766, Comanche raids were common. The turmoil caused by these Indian raids and by the Civil War and its aftermath reduced the population to 300 by 1871. Thereafter, the town grew steadily as a center for agricultural and livestock production. After 1886 the area was also a center for coal mining, an important industry there for the next thirty years. The Texas Pacific, the county's first newspaper, began in Stephenville in 1870.

The town was permanently incorporated in 1889, the year the Fort Worth and Rio Grande Railway arrived. Most of the stone buildings on the town square date from the 1890s, the decade in which John Tarleton Agricultural College (now Tarleton State University) opened. Another newspaper, the Tribune, also began at that time; it later merged with the town's original paper, which had become the Empire, to form the Empire-Tribune.

Stephenville and Erath County had an oil boom from 1918 to 1920, but the important fields lay outside the county, and the expectations of great fortunes in petroleum soon faded. The town grew slowly in the next decades, from a population of 3,891 in 1920 to 4,768 in 1940. In 1953 an industrial foundation was formed there, and within ten years Stephenville had industries including a creamery, hatcheries, feed mills, meat-packing plants, a garment factory, and nurseries. By the early 1970s the town had more than 200 businesses and a population of more than 9,000. In 1983 a population of 11,881 supported 320 businesses. Industrial products included coated abrasives, clothing, automobile parts, mobile homes, and electrical products. Tarleton State University was the town's largest employer. In 1990 the population was 13,502. By 2000 the population reached 14,921.

Stephenville has a 2026 population of 21,956. It is also the county seat of Erath County. Stephenville is currently growing at a rate of 0.75% annually and its population has increased by 4.02% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of 21,108 in 2020.

06/06/2026

Passing through Morgan Mill, Texas 🚙💨

Morgan Mill, on the North Paluxy River at the junction of U.S. Highway 281 and Farm roads 1189 and 1715 in northeastern Erath County, was the site of a corn and wheat mill moved there in 1874 by M. C. Laughlin and J. R. Billingsley. Criss Brooks started the first store in 1876. In 1877 George Morgan, for whom the community was named, bought an interest in the mill, and that year a post office was established. The name was changed from Morgan's Mill to Morgan Mill in 1892. The town was a small trading center in the early decades of the twentieth century. Its population was reported as 143 in 1900, 261 in 1940, and 206 in 1980 and 1990. During the latter period the community drew retirees and some residents who commuted to the Dallas-Fort Worth area.

06/05/2026

Passing through the historic downtown district of Terrell, Texas 🚙💨

Terrell is on U.S. Highway 80 and State highways 34 and 205, thirty miles east of Dallas in northern Kaufman County. One of the first settlers in the area was George Paschall, who arrived in 1848. When the Texas and Pacific Railway crossed North Texas in 1873, two enterprising Kaufman County citizens, C. C. Nash and John G. Moore, purchased 320 acres in the J. W. Cude survey and laid out streets and lots for business and home sites. Jasper Johnson became the first postmaster when the post office opened in 1873.

The town was named in honor of Robert A. Terrell, a pioneer settler whose farm lay on its western edge. The community grew rapidly and was incorporated in 1875. By the mid-1880s it had a population of 3,000, served by two banks, two hotels, three flour mills, three cotton gins, three weekly newspapers, and nine churches.

The North Texas Insane Asylum (now Terrell State Hospital) was opened in Terrell in 1885 to help relieve overcrowding at the state institution in Austin. By 1890 local businesses included a creamery, a canning factory, and an iron foundry; the town was also the shipping point for cattle, cotton, and timber raised in the area. In 1892 Edward Howland Robinson Green chose Terrell as the headquarters for the Texas Midland Railroad. During World War II, British pilots trained at what is now the municipal airport.

Private schools began operation in Terrell as early as 1874, and a public school system was in place by 1882. Robert A. Terrell's son-in-law, W. B. Toon, established Toon College in 1897 at the Terrell family homestead. The name was changed in 1901 to Terrell University School. This was replaced in 1904 by a Methodist institution called North Texas University School, which became Wesley College in 1909 and moved to Greenville in 1912.

Texas Military College operated in Terrell from 1914 to 1949. Southwestern Christian College bought the site of Texas Military College and moved to Terrell from Fort Worth in 1950. In the 1980s a branch campus of Trinity Valley Junior College was also located in Terrell. The population of Terrell was 10,481 in 1941, 15,500 in 1970, and 13,953 in 1988. The town economy in the 1980s was based primarily on agricultural businesses and on manufacturing plants producing machine parts, clothing, and plastic goods. In 1990 the population of Terrell was 12,490. The population reached 13,606 in 2000.

Terrell has a 2026 population of 25,217. Terrell is currently growing at a rate of 5.42% annually and its population has increased by 41.43% since the most recent census, which recorded a population of 17,830 in 2020.

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Godley, TX
76044

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