Frio Town, Texas | |
|---|---|
 Frio Town Cemetery | |
| Country | United States |
| State | Texas |
| County | Frio |
| Time zone | UTC-6 (Central (CST)) |
| • Summer (DST) | UTC-5 (CDT) |
Frio Town, known as Frio City before 1886, is a ghost town immediately south of the Presidio Crossing on the Frio River in Frio County, Texas, United States.
Located 16 miles northwest of Pearsall, the town was laid out by A.L. Oden in 1871. The river crossing it lay near was named for the fact that numerous cannonballs, swords, and sabers were found there. Juan De Ugalde in the 18th century, Antonio López de Santa Anna in 1836, and Adrián Woll in 1842 were all thought to have used the Presidio Crossing.
The first mail to the town was delivered by horseback from Benton City; later, it arrived by stagecoach from San Antonio. In 1871, Frio City became the first county seat of Frio County. Carting cypress shingles from Leakey, L.J.W. Edwards completed the first Frio County courthouse in January 1872. The same year, the town's stone jail was built. The jail eventually housed such famed outlaws as Sam Bass, Jesse James, Frank James, and writer William Sydney Porter. With the rise in construction, high-cost building material from out of town became impractical and led to the establishment of a cypress shingle mill, brick factory, and lime kiln in Frio City.
In 1872, the town started delivering its own mail with the establishment of a post office in Frio City with James McClain Elledge at its helm. The town's first merchant was L.J.W. Edwards and the first school in Frio County was a private home in Frio City. During the 1870s, a local chapter of the Freemasons was established. In 1877, the courthouse burned down and was replaced by a two-story, native-stone building, funded in part by wealthy local resident W.J. Slaughter. The new courthouse reportedly once had an ornate walnut staircase. In the mid-1870s, Indian attacks in and around Frio City caused the Texas Rangers to be called in, and many frontier residents sought shelter in town. The last major Indian attack in the area occurred in the spring of 1877. [1]
Frio City became known as a "cowboy capital" and cultural center during the 1870s. By the 1880s, estimates of its population hovered around 1,500. Evangelists John Wesley DeVilbiss and Andrew Jackson Potter preached in the area and the Rio Grande Baptist Association was organized in Frio City in 1880. That same year, the International-Great Northern Railroad extended through Frio County, though it bypassed Frio City. [1]
With the establishment of the town of Pearsall along the rail route, people began to leave Frio City. By 1883, Pearsall had become the county seat, and in 1886, Frio City changed its name to Frio Town. W. Yancey Kilgore purchased the Frio Town courthouse in 1884, it later housed a general store, the post office, and in 1884, the Frio Academy.
By 1890, the population had fallen to 100, and in 1906, 17 pupils attended the two-teacher Frio Academy. The town slowly dwindled into obscurity even with the addition of telephone connections in 1914. During that year, Frio Town housed a general store and six cattle breeders. In 1929, the town had a school and five homes. In June 1930, the Rio Grande Baptist Association celebrated their 50th anniversary at the site of the old courthouse.
By 1953, the townsite was mostly abandoned, and a Mrs. A.C. Roberts owned most of the structures, including the courthouse and roofless jail. The town's population remained steady at 20 throughout the 1960s and even jumped to 49 in 1969. By 1990, all that remained of the once-bustling Frio City was the Frio Town Cemetery and the largely intact ruins of the original courthouse and jail on the private Roberts Ranch. [1] The ruins of the courthouse are considered a historic courthouse by the Texas Historical Commission. [2]
Real County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 3,309. The county seat is Leakey. The county is named for Julius Real (1860–1944), a former member of the Texas State Senate.
Menard County is a county located on the Edwards Plateau in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 2,242. Its seat is Menard. The county was created in 1858 and later organized in 1871. It is named for Michel Branamour Menard, the founder of Galveston, Texas.
Frio County is a county located in the U.S. state of Texas. As of the 2010 census, its population was 17,217. The county seat is Pearsall. The county was created in 1858 and later organized in 1871. Frio is named for the Frio River, whose name is Spanish for "cold".
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Dilley is a city in Frio County, Texas, United States. The population was 3,894 at the 2010 census. It is located off Interstate 35 south of the county seat in Pearsall.
North Pearsall is a census-designated place (CDP) in Frio County, Texas, United States. The population was 614 at the 2010 census.
Pearsall is a city in and the county seat of Frio County, Texas, United States. The population was 9,146 at the 2010 census, up from 7,157 at the 2000 census.
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Menard is a city in and the county seat of Menard County, Texas, United States. Its population was 1,471 at the 2010 census.
Leakey is a city in and the county seat of Real County, Texas, United States. The population was 425 at the 2010 census.
John Wesley Hardin was an American Old West outlaw, gunfighter, and controversial folk icon. The son of a Methodist preacher, Hardin got into trouble with the law from an early age. He killed his first man at age 15; he claimed it was in self-defense.
Tilden is a Census-designated place (CDP) and county seat of McMullen County, Texas, United States.
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The United States District Court for the Western District of Texas is a federal district court. The court convenes in San Antonio with divisions in Austin, Del Rio, El Paso, Midland, Pecos, and Waco. It has jurisdiction in over 50 Trans-Pecos, Permian Basin, and Hill Country counties of the U.S. state of Texas. This district covers over 92,000 square miles (240,000 km2) and seven divisions.
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Samuel Sloan was a Philadelphia-based architect and best-selling author of architecture books in the mid-19th century. He specialized in Italianate villas and country houses, churches, and institutional buildings. His most famous building—the octagonal mansion "Longwood" in Natchez, Mississippi—is unfinished; construction was abandoned during the American Civil War.
The San Antonio–El Paso Road, also known as the Lower Emigrant Road or Military Road, was an economically important trade route between the Texas cities of San Antonio and El Paso between 1849 and 1882. Mail, freight, and passengers traveled by horse and wagon along this road across the Edwards Plateau and dangerous Trans-Pecos region of West Texas.
Wyatt Outlaw was the first African-American elected to be Town Commissioner and Constable of the town of Graham, North Carolina. He was lynched by the Ku Klux Klan on February 26, 1870. His death, along with the assassination of white Republican State Senator John W. Stephens at the Caswell County Courthouse, provoked Governor William Woods Holden to declare martial law in Alamance and Caswell Counties, resulting in the Kirk-Holden War of 1870.
The Jeff Davis County Courthouse is located in the town of Fort Davis, the seat of Jeff Davis County in the U.S. state of Texas. The courthouse was constructed between 1910-1911 and added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2002. The Texas Historical Commission (THC) has also designated the building as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark since 2000 and, along with the surrounding courthouse square, as a State Antiquities Landmark since 2003. The surrounding county and county seat, along with the nearby historic frontier fort at Fort Davis National Historic Site, are named after Jefferson Davis, who served as U.S. war secretary at the time of the establishment of the fort and the town, and who would later become president of the Confederate States of America during the Civil War.
Spur 581 is a state highway spur located in Frio County.
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Municipalities and communities of Frio County, Texas, United States | ||
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| Other unincorporated community | ||
| Ghost town | ||
