Archer County

Long before the county was drawn, Apaches, Wichitas, Tawakonis, Kichais, Caddos, Comanches and later Kiowas camped and hunted here, and French traders kept a post in the eighteenth century near two small mesas later called Little Arizona. In 1870 Kiowas led by Kicking Bird defeated cavalrymen under Capt. Curwen B. McLellan on the Little Wichita River. When settlers came, cattlemen first divided the range by agreed lines that cowboys rode daily. Barbed wire arrived in the fall of 1880, and the big pastures were fenced. That year 596 people and more than 56,000 cattle were counted.

What the plaque says

A part of the Peters Grant, 1841; Created January 22, 1858; Organized July 27, 1880; Named in honor of Dr. Branch Tanner Archer 1790-1856; Texas Commissioner to the United States, 1835, Member of Congress, Secretary of War of the Republic of Texas. First permanent settlement, 1874; First railroad, 1890; Archer City, the county seat. (1936, 1986)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Royal Theater — 6.0 mi
  Archer City's movie house, burned in 1965, given a false front for The Last Picture Show and brought back by the town in the 1990s as a working stage on Main Street.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 23 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.

More markers nearby

• Extinct Town of Anarene — 2.1 mi
• First Baptist Church of Archer City — 5.8 mi
• Archer City Methodist Church — 5.8 mi
• Archer County Discovery Well — 5.9 mi