Brown Hotel

The name came from California. The Handbook of Texas says J. T. Brown, from Chico, California, moved to the area in the mid-1870s and opened a general store near Dry Creek, and the settlement became a church and school community. A post office opened in 1882 and the Rock Island tracks arrived about a decade later, making Chico a retail center for cotton farmers. Nearby oil in the early 1940s lifted the population to 1,000 by 1942, and four large stone plants made crushed rock. Peanuts and cantaloupes replaced cotton in the 1950s, and the town incorporated in 1950.

What the plaque says

Brown Hotel Colonel J.T. Brown founded town of Chico in 1876; built this hotel 1888. In ceremony on hotel porch, Governor Charles A. Culberson pardoned Brown for his part in an 1895 fight fatality. Banker-tenant R. Lee Morris owned Brown Hotel from 1908 to 1965. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Wise County Courthouse — 13 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.
• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 21 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.

More markers nearby

• Indian Captives Dot and Bianca Babb — 2.1 mi
• Republic of Texas' Santa Fe Expedition in Wise County — 5.7 mi
• Bridgeport Coal Mines — 6.2 mi
• Toll Bridge & Old Bridgeport — 6.8 mi