Wise County, Texas
Decatur is home to 41 official Texas Historical Commission markers — each one telling a piece of the city’s story. Browse the markers below, then find them on the map and discover more nearby with RoadHistorical.
Through Decatur passed the Butterfield Overland mail line connecting St. Louis and San Francisco with semi-weekly stage and mail service, 1858-1861. The length of the route, 2,795 miles and the superior service…
View on map ↗1000 E. Main St., Decatur
View on map ↗County named for Henry A. Wise, U.S. Senator from Virginia who supported Texas annexation, later Governor and C.S.A. general. Wise County was part of District One of 33 brigade districts of Texas established to recruit…
View on map ↗Decatur Baptist College, world's first institution to be planned (in 1898) as a junior college. This hall was built in 1892, for an earlier school.
View on map ↗Texas Historical Building Medallion
View on map ↗(1832-1908) Respected Negro citizen and homeowner. Champion pioneer fiddler, popular at Forts Belknap, Griffin and Richardson and over county. Once when he was an Indian captive, held in Kansas, Texans sent ponies to…
View on map ↗On November 10, 1837, a company of eighteen Republic of Texas soldiers led by Lt. A. B. Benthuysen engaged in a battle with approximately 150 Indians near this site. Ten Texas soldiers were killed in the battle, and the…
View on map ↗Famous western frontier outlaws, who had many Texas hideouts along a line from the Rio Grande to the Red River. The camps - extending into Missouri, their home state - were used for hiding stolen horses until posses…
View on map ↗(May 5, 1842 - March 8, 1913) Dedicated and courageous. Born in Indiana; reared in Missouri. Wounded twice in Confederate service during the Civil War. On reorganization of Texas Rangers, 1874, was commissioned first…
View on map ↗Located on 3-acres donated in 1883 by E. M. Curtner, N. E. Young, P. H. and N. C. Neal for a cemetery, school, and church. First school (a 2-story building) was 30 yards west of cemetery. First church was about 300…
View on map ↗Near this site ran one of the many "feeder" branches of the famous Chisholm Trail, best-known of all the cattle trails that once linked the vast grasslands of Texas with the meat-hungry markets of the north. The…
View on map ↗Oldest original church building in Decatur. Consecrated by great missionary bishop, the Rt. Rev. A. C. Garrett. Erected facing Main Street (2 blks. W. of square) in 1889. Known as "The Little Church with the Crosses",…
View on map ↗First stone house in Decatur. Erected by prison labor about 1859. Main house was residence of sheriff or deputy. Basement was used as jail. Meals were sent down a dumb-waiter located outside the east end of the house.…
View on map ↗Tennessee pioneer Sam Woody (1826-1920) migrated to Texas in the 1840s. He brought his family to Wise County in 1854. This cabin, located near Deep Creek, was the first dwelling in the area. After Woody cut the logs,…
View on map ↗Operated 1885-1962 to support and employ dependent or needy citizens and as place for county convicts to work out fines. First superintendent of the 320-acre farm, R. Suffert, managed all land and activities and his…
View on map ↗A leading public man in Texas, 1896-1939. Born in Wise County to early (1854) settlers. After two years at Texas A & M, read law and began practice in 1886. Served 1888-92 as Decatur City attorney; 1892-96 as county…
View on map ↗Settled in 1850s by Moses Ball and other pioneers. Tradition says first burial here was an Indian; the second, a small girl who died while her family was migrating through the area. Oldest tombstones are dated 1878.…
View on map ↗Remnant of bois d'arc hedge which encircled the log cabin of Stephen M. Gose (1824-77), early justice of the peace, blacksmith, and leader of Methodist church, who came to Texas from Missouri in 1859. The spiny trees,…
View on map ↗Born in Gibson County, Tennessee, S. W. Tilghman (1846-1913) came in 1870 by wagon train to Wise County. In 1872 he married a Decatur native, Eliza Bland Miller (1856-1931), and became father of a daughter and three…
View on map ↗The Confederate veterans of Wise County are said to have held occasional reunions in the 1860s-1870s. Old settlers invited both the Confederate veterans and Wise County pioneers to an 1881 reunion at Cold Springs. This…
View on map ↗Born in Illinois, William Renshaw studied medicine and set up practice in Sparta, Tennessee. His wife Sarah received from the Mexican government a grant of land in Texas, where her father Samuel Worthington lost his…
View on map ↗(1832-1908) Born a slave near Savannah, GA., Randolph Vesey was body servant to Confederate General William Lewis Cabell during the Civil War. In 1868, while living on the Montague-Wise County line, Vesey was captured…
View on map ↗Organized in 1862, this congregation is the oldest in Decatur. The Reverend J. R. Bellamy conducted the first services in a vacant store on the south side of the town square. Other churches were not started in the…
View on map ↗Started by William Forster in 1880, the "Messenger" was published in Paradise (10 miles southwest) and Alvord (11 miles northwest) before a permanent move to Decatur in 1885. Early editions included poems, love stories,…
View on map ↗This financial institution was organized in 1883 by Decatur bankers Dan Waggoner, Henry Greathouse, and other pioneer businessmen. Waggoner's son, W. T. Waggoner (b. 1854), a prominent Texas cattleman and oilman, served…
View on map ↗This congregation was organized in 1878 with fourteen charter members by the Reverend Jim Smith and the Reverend E. C. Fullingim. In 1880 the church became part of the Decatur circuit, and the Reverend R. N. Brown…
View on map ↗Oak Lawn Cemetery was officially established in 1878 when William T. Perry deeded property to R. M. Collins, the mayor of Decatur, for a public burial ground for area residents. At that time however, at least one marked…
View on map ↗Local businessman E. F. Boydston (1888-1945) purchased this site, a former feed lot, in 1927 for $400. Recognizing a potential business opportunity in offering services to the traveling public, he built a wooden shed…
View on map ↗Georgia native the Reverend Henry Fullingim, his wife Martha, and their 17 children came to northeast Texas in 1849. Henry Fullingim served the area as a circuit-riding Methodist minister. Their son, Archibald, and…
View on map ↗Named for a stream that flowed through the area, the community of Rush Creek contained a school, two churches, and a cemetery. The oldest recorded burial is that of Harry Houston, infant son of John and Mary Houston,…
View on map ↗The land around this site was deeded to the trustees of the Lee School Community, one of whom was M. W. Preskitt, in April 1885. In August of the following year, the Lee School trustees deeded half that parcel to County…
View on map ↗Organized in 1856 under the Rev. J.T. Willis, the church first met in the log cabin of Samuel Perrin in Taylorsville, now known as Decatur. From early on, members were active in the town. By the late 1880s, the Rev.…
View on map ↗TRIMBLE CEMETERY TRIMBLE CEMETERY WAS THE MAIN BURIAL GROUND USED BY THE RESIDENTS OF THE TINY COMMUNITY OF FLATWOOD (ALSO KNOWN AS DAVIS CITY) THAT EXISTED DURING THE LATE NINETEENTH CENTURY. THE CEMETERY IS NAMED FOR…
View on map ↗IN APRIL 1893, REVEREND JOSEPHUS WESLEY FORD AND WIFE, JAMES ALEXANDER FORD AND WIFE, RICHARD S. FORD AND WIFE, JESSIE GARRISON AND WIFE AND SISTER JESSIE L. PHILLIPS ORGANIZED THE NEW SALEM FREEWILL BAPTIST CHURCH…
View on map ↗ST. JOHN MISSIONARY BAPTIST CHURCH THIS HISTORIC CHURCH FORMED IN THE SPRING OF 1882. A GROUP OF WOMEN, LED BY MISSOURI BROWN, BEGAN A SUNDAY SCHOOL AND LATER INITIATED THE ORGANIZATION OF A NEW CHURCH. THE FIRST CHURCH…
View on map ↗In the late 19th and early 20th centuries, Wise and several surrounding counties had few African American citizens. Yet regulations at the time required separate facilities for African Americans. Most African American…
View on map ↗William Perrin and his wife, Charlotte, along with two other families, left Rock Castle, Kentucky in the fall of 1853, arriving forty days later in the Peters Colony near Dallas. They moved west again, arriving in Wise…
View on map ↗COLONEL ABSALOM BISHOP ABSALOM BISHOP (1804-1883) BEGAN HIS MILITARY SERVICE AS A CAPTAIN OF MILITIA IN THE SEMINOLE WAR IN FLORIDA. HE LATER ATTAINED THE RANK OF COLONEL. BISHOP LIVED IN SEVERAL STATES BEFORE ARRIVING…
View on map ↗In 1895, members of the fraternal organization, the Freemasons, petitioned the most worshipful Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Texas to establish a Masonic Lodge in their community. The lodge was chartered on…
View on map ↗FM 730 South at County Road 4280-NW corner of intersection
View on map ↗Northwest corner of S. Trinity Street and Pecan Street
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