Denton County, Texas
Denton is home to 49 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.
Created April 11, 1846 from Fannin County; organized July 13, 1846 with Denton as county seat. Both town and county are named in honor of John B. Denton 1807-1841. Pioneer preacher, lawyer and Indian fighter. First…
View on map ↗Born in Tennessee July 26, 1806, came to Texas in January, 1836. As a Methodist circuit rider killed in the Village Creek Indian fight May 24, 1841 in what is now Tarrant County. Named for Gen. Edward H. Tarrant who…
View on map ↗Marking a trail in a pathless wilderness, pressing forward with unswerving courage, she met each untried situation with a resourcefulness equal to the need. With a glad heart she brought to her frontier family her…
View on map ↗On this site in 1891, the city of Denton erected a building to be leased to President Joshua C. Chilton, for the use of the privately owned Texas Normal College and Teacher Training Institute, which he had opened the…
View on map ↗At this site, on the second floor of a hardware store, 70 students enrolled for the first session of Texas Normal College and Teacher Training Institute, September 16, 1890. The students included 28 Creeks from Indian…
View on map ↗Named indirectly for Simon Bolivar, South American statesman, general and patriot. It might have been called "New Prospect," but for a mug of rum. When town was founded in 1852, a man who had settled here from Bolivar,…
View on map ↗Built 1896-97. Fifth courthouse for Denton County. First was at Alton, second at Pinckneyville. Third (in Denton) was burned in crime charged to a member of the Sam Bass Gang of outlaws. Walls are native limestone;…
View on map ↗Darius Gregg (1804-70), who came to Texas from Tennessee in 1827, and fought in the Texas War for Independence, accumulated about 20,000 acres in this area in the early 1850s. Gregg, a surveyor and Houston Realtor,…
View on map ↗Charles Christian Lacy (1816 - 70) moved with wife Sarah (Brown) from Kentucky to Texas, 1854; platted Denton townsite, 1855; had what is thought to have been city's first hotel, existent 1858-82, at this site. Before…
View on map ↗The Girls Industrial Institute and College of Texas was created in 1901. Fourteen cities offered sites. Denton was chosen February 5, 1902. The cornerstone of this building, the first on the campus, was laid on January…
View on map ↗Pioneers settled this locality in the 1840s. In 1846 the Texas Legislature created Denton County -- one of several carved from the Peters Colony grant. After trying other sites, the voters in 1856 accepted for county…
View on map ↗The original part of this house was built in 1885-86 for local grocer Robert C. Scripture and his wife Annie (Brown). It was later owned by Robert Hann, a merchant and civic leader. Constructed as a Victorian residence,…
View on map ↗The original Rock Garden and native botanical area at this site was established in the 1930s by the Exterior Beautification Committee of Texas State College for Women, now Texas Woman's University. Members of the…
View on map ↗In 1875 a group of black pioneers from the White Rock Community in Dallas moved to Denton County and named their settlement Freedman Town. Worship services, prayer groups, and Bible meetings were held in private homes.…
View on map ↗Attracted to the area by its fertile soil, good water supply, and abundant building materials, pioneers from Tennessee, Missouri, Georgia, Arkansas, and Wisconsin settled here in the 1850s. Their colony, located on the…
View on map ↗Business and civic leader J. Fred Rayzor (1890-1965) had this home constructed in 1912 by local builder M. T. Goodwin. It was purchased in 1941 by W. E. Graham (1890-1963) and remained in his family until 1974. Features…
View on map ↗Built in 1912-13 to serve as a library and gymnasium, this is the oldest remaining building on the North Texas campus. It became known as the Historical Building in 1925, when history professor Joseph Lyman Kingsbury…
View on map ↗Denton Lodge No. 82 of the Independent Order of Odd Fellows (I.O.O.F.) was chartered in 1859 by a number of the area's most prominent settlers, including John S. Chisum of the Chisum Trail fame. That year I.O.O.F.…
View on map ↗Immaculate Conception Catholic Church This church began as a mission of the Dallas Diocese about 1890; the Rev. F. X. Meilinger served as mission priest. The congregation held services on the second floor of a local…
View on map ↗Twelve men and women met in 1858 in the log cabin Denton County Courthouse to organize the Union Baptist Church. In its first decade, the church doubled its membership. By 1876 the congregation had been renamed the…
View on map ↗This cemetery was established soon after Denton was settled as the new seat of government for Denton County in 1857. Land for the community burial ground was donated by pioneer settler Hiram Cisco, who had earlier…
View on map ↗With burials dating to 1852, this graveyard is associated with some of the earliest settlement in Denton County. In that year, Rebecca Daugherty, daughter of one of the pioneer families, died and was buried on family…
View on map ↗Physician and lay preacher Thomas A. Ball and his wife, Nancy (Yeats), came to Denton County from Missouri soon after the Civil War ended in 1865. They settled with their family on land that would become the community…
View on map ↗The Rev. William E. Bates, a native of Virginia, established the Methodist congregation at Little Elm in 1853. Members shared a meetinghouse with other denominations at John House Springs and in 1916 built their own…
View on map ↗St. Emmanuel began as the Second Baptist Church of Quakertown, an African American community within present Denton that existed from the mid-1880s until 1922. That year, the city held a bond election to buy all the…
View on map ↗This prominent residence was built in 1925-27 at a cost of $30,000 for Dr. M.L. Martin (1869-1941) and his wife, Ailsey (Forester) Martin (1890-1968). Ailsey grew up on the nearby Forester Ranch (established 1852) and…
View on map ↗(December 3, 1905 – July 20, 1982) In the mid-20th century, a North Texas native became a leading architect of the American Southwest. O’Neil Ford was born in Pink Hill and went to school in Sherman (both Grayson Co.),…
View on map ↗northeast corner of Hickory and Cedar Streets
View on map ↗south side of Congress between Denton St. and Mounts Ave., north end of DISD's Calhoun Middle School Complex
View on map ↗In Old Alton Bridge Park, east side of Old Alton Road, south of Teasley Lane (FM 2181)
View on map ↗In the early 1880s, Quakertown emerged as a thriving African American community in the heart of Denton. Quakertown flourished through 1920, its growth due in part to its location near the city square and the…
View on map ↗NORTH TEXAS STATE FAIR AND RODEO THE FIRST RECORDED FAIR IN THE DENTON AREA OPENED ON OCTOBER 15, 1885 AS THE DENTON COUNTY BLOODED STOCK AND FAIR. THROUGHOUT THE LATE 1800s AND EARLY 1900s, AREA FAIRS CONTINUED TO…
View on map ↗DURING DENTON COUNTY’S EARLY YEARS, FARMING AND RANCHING WERE THE TRADITIONAL PURSUITS. WHEN THE RAILROADS ENTERED THE COUNTY, SUBSISTENCE FARMING GAVE WAY TO FARMING THAT YIELDED MONEY-MAKING CROPS THAT COULD BE…
View on map ↗AS EARLY AS 1872 BAPTISTS IN THE COOPER CREEK COMMUNITY MET FOR CHURCH IN A BUILDING LOCATED CLOSE TO THE CURRENT STRUCTURE. IN 1916, L.F. “TOM” COLLINS DONATED LAND TO THE CHURCH TO BUILD A NEW SANCTUARY, WHICH WAS…
View on map ↗This burial ground is one of the last remaining remnants of a small rural community that dates back to before the Civil War. Settlers, including the Farris and Skaggs families, came to northeast Denton County in the…
View on map ↗Although the Cooper Creek Community was formally established in 1872, families began to settle the area before the Civil War. A land deed from that period set aside a portion of this property for the creation of a…
View on map ↗JAMES NEWTON RAYZOR WAS BORN DECEMBER 10, 1858 IN LOCKPORT, KENTUCKY. HE IMMIGRATED TO TEXAS IN THE FALL OF 1866 WITH HIS FAMILY AND SETTLED IN COLLIN COUNTY. IN 1871, THE FAMILY MOVED TO COOKE COUNTY WHERE RAYZOR LATER…
View on map ↗Beulah A. Harriss (1889-1977) moved to Denton in 1914 from Nebraska to become the first women’s physical education teacher at North Texas State Normal College, now University of North Texas (UNT). With a degree from the…
View on map ↗This historic bridge was an important two-way traffic bridge over the Elm Fork of the Trinity River for growing automobile traffic in Denton County in the 1920s. The bridge is one of only two accessible iron and steel…
View on map ↗From 1894 until October 1927, the Denton City Hall was housed in an 1877 red brick building located at the corner of Oak and Bolivar streets. The rapid growth of Denton in the early 20th century called for a newer and…
View on map ↗Born to pioneers in 1859, James "Jim" Russell Christal was raised by his mother after age three when his father mysteriously died on a hunting trip. At age 12, Jim started as a horse wrangler and eventually was hired as…
View on map ↗Edna Westbrook Trigg (1868-1946) was the first county home demonstration agent appointed in Texas in 1915, serving in Denton County from February 1916 through December 1937. She was named Denton County home…
View on map ↗The Lipscomb-Doggett House was built by Dr. Priestly Lipscomb (1869-1942) and wife, Molly Binyon (1871-1942). The couple contracted the one-story frame house from J.C. Thornton in 1895. Built on bustling West Oak…
View on map ↗Robert Noble Mounts (1863-1922) and Nannie Lee (Christal) Mounts (1870-1942) built this home in 1898. The Mounts family came to Denton County in the 1850s from Virginia. In 1857, Robert Mounts’ father, W.H. Mounts,…
View on map ↗The Mounts family first arrived in Denton County in the 1850s from Virginia. W.H. Mounts (1833-1889) and his wife, Martha Elizabeth (Mattie) Mounts (1838-1914), were early residents of the new county seat of Denton,…
View on map ↗This Arts and Crafts Mission Style home was built in 1915 by prominent civic leader, James W. Simmons, and his wife, Susan S. Gregg, granddaughter of Darius Gregg, Denton County pioneer and founder of Gregg Ranch.…
View on map ↗Located on a prominent hilltop and street, in a neighborhood known as Silk Stocking Row, this house was built for Robert Henry Evers (1859-1936) and Mary Euphemia (Taylor) Evers (1861-1941). They married in Texarkana in…
View on map ↗In 1932, newlyweds Elbert Norfleet "E.N." Woodrum (1901-1955) and Comette Josephine (Ramsey) Woodrum (1910-1986) hired contractors to construct a Tudor Revival house. Notable architectural features include asymmetrical…
View on map ↗The Rev. William E. Bates organized the First Methodist Church of Denton in 1857, the same year the town of Denton was formed. Services were conducted in the log courthouse until the Masonic lodge of Denton constructed…
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