Historical Marker
Acton Public Square
Acton, Hood County · Texas
Erected 1976
Clarence Hollis built Acton's first permanent store, and it did the work of four businesses: general store, post office, saloon and blacksmith shop. The Handbook of Texas gives competing stories for the town's name, which it dates to about 1861. The most common says Hollis chose it for his sweetheart, Miss Acton. Another says it comes from Oak Town, for the oaks. The first post office, in 1856, was spelled Camanche Peak. A Masonic Hall finished in 1868 persuaded new families to settle for good.
What the plaque says
Acton Public Square The oldest community in what is now Hood County, Acton was settled during the 1850's. First called "Comanche Peak" when a post office was established here on March 10, 1856, the town was renamed "Acton" before the post office was reopened, March 16, 1868. Clarence P. Hollis, pioneer merchant and early postmaster, donated 1.43 acres of land for this public square in the 1860's. Once the hub of commercial activity, the square declined after many of the buildings around it burned. The site was resurveyed in 1974 and restored as center of this rural community. (1976)
Where it stands
32.44676, -97.69102 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Acton State Historic Site — 0.6 miThe smallest state historic site in Texas, a grave plot holding Elizabeth Crockett, widow of David Crockett, under a 1913 statue of a pioneer woman shading her eyes toward the west.
- Granbury Courthouse Square — 5.6 miA National Register square of limestone storefronts around W. C. Dodson's Second Empire courthouse, whose clock tower citizens saved after a 1968 tornado.
- Dinosaur Valley State Park — 16 miTheropod and sauropod trackways of about 113 million years ago in the bed of the Paluxy River, a National Natural Landmark where R. T. Bird found the first distinct sauropod tracks in 1937.
- Cleburne State Park — 16 miA 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps park on the old Chisholm Trail crossing country, with a spring-fed lake, a hand-carved three-tiered spillway and a CCC bridge in Johnson County.