B. F. Morris and the Town of Joaquin

Joaquin began as a depot. Benjamin Franklin Morris gave 100 acres to the Houston, East and West Texas Railway in 1885 on the condition that a station be built, and the station took his grandson's name. A post office opened in 1886 with Erastus F. Sayers as first postmaster. In 1890 the settlement had several stores and about 100 people. By 1914 it shipped lumber and cotton and had a sawmill, a bank, a gin, a mill and a newspaper, the Plaindealer. Joaquin was incorporated in 1940 with 487 residents.

What the plaque says

B. F. Morris and the Town of Joaquin Alabama-born Benjamin Franklin Morris (1827-1900) came to Texas in 1838 and settled in the area that became the pioneer village of Sarat. A prosperous farmer and rancher, he gave right of way through 500 acres of his land to the Houston, East & West Texas Railroad in 1884. He also provided a 100-acre townsite to be named for his grandson Joaquin (1878-1898), requesting that a depot be built here and that passenger trains stop daily. Morris, a Confederate veteran, later donated a building site for the First Baptist Church of Joaquin. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tex Ritter Museum and Texas Country Music Hall of Fame — 21 mi
  Carthage's country music museum, with Tex Ritter's boots, guitars and saddles in a room styled like a movie theater, and exhibits on other Texas stars, Jim Reeves among them.

More markers nearby

• Fellowship Baptist Church — 2.9 mi
• International Boundary Marker — 4.7 mi
• Site of Town of Spivey, 1870s-1900 — 5.4 mi
• Truitt Cemetery — 5.5 mi