Bolivar, Townsite of

The Handbook of Texas dates Bolivar to 1859, not 1852 as the plaque has it. Hiram Daily, a Methodist minister and doctor, bought the site from William Crawford and called it New Prospect. In 1861 Ben Brown, from Bolivar, Tennessee, got the name changed by buying residents free drinks. The Chisholm Trail ran three miles west, and cowboys came in to patronize the hotel and saloons. In 1886 merchants moved to Sanger and the Santa Fe. Oil gave a small boost in the 1940s and early 1950s, with some forty fields nearby, and by 1980 only forty residents remained.

What the plaque says

Bolivar, Townsite of 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, Tenn., wanted to name the community in honor of his hometown. But a preacher-doctor insisted that it be named New Prospect. An election was called to settle the matter and the Tennessean exchanged mugs of rum for votes, Bolivar won. During the 1800s, Bolivar was the westernmost fort in Denton County and the first settlement west of Collin County. Two stagecoach lines changed horses here. The town thrived and could count three hotels, several stores, a gin, a flour mill, a sawmill, a blacksmith shop, a saloon, a church and a school. It was here that the Texas cattle trail joined the Jesse Chisholm Trail, but it was John Chisum, Texas cattle baron, who had herds here and furnished beef to the Confederacy during the Civil War. Bolivar and the surrounding area were havens for Sam Bass and his men. Two Bolivar men were jailed in 1890 for harboring notorious marauders. Many early settlers (whose descendants still live here) played important roles in development of county. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square — 12 mi
  An 1896 courthouse by W. C. Dodson in Denton limestone, pink granite and two sandstones, restored in 2004, now a free county museum on a lawn holding the grave of John B. Denton.
• Great Hanging Memorial — 19 mi
  Two granite monuments in a Gainesville park, dedicated in 2014, for the Cooke County men the Confederate militia hanged in October 1862 on suspicion of Unionism.
• Wise County Courthouse — 22 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's granite Romanesque courthouse of 1895-96 in Decatur, built after fire destroyed the Second Empire courthouse and set off a fight over the county seat.
• Stonewall Saloon Museum — 28 mi
  Saint Jo's first permanent building, a stone saloon of 1873 with rooms upstairs for trail drovers, in a town named, the story goes, as a joke on a founder who did not drink.

More markers nearby

• Sanger and the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway — 4.4 mi
• City of Krum — 6.9 mi
• Slidell — 8.7 mi
• Era, The Town of — 9.8 mi