Bryson

Before it took Henry Bryson's name, the settlement was called Mount Hecla, and mail came under that name from 1878; the Handbook of Texas says the post office became Bryson in 1884. Bryson himself later served as a county commissioner. After the Rock Island tracks arrived, the town had its own bank by 1907. For its first half century it was a business and school town for cattlemen, and only in the mid-1920s did it become the processing center for local oil producers. Bryson incorporated by 1931, peaked at about 806 residents in 1947 and had 528 in 2000.

What the plaque says

Jack County Petroleum Capital. Founder, Henry E. Bryson (September 1, 1839 - October 25, 1909), a Civil War veteran, farmer and stockraiser, built first log cabin here in 1878. After Bryson post office was established in 1882, the town developed as a center for the growing of cotton and grain. Rock Island Railroad reached here in 1902. The first oil well was drilled 1925; town in 1920s and 30s had a gasoline plant; from 1935 until late 1954 an oil refinery was in operation here. Churches, schools, social and civic clubs and Masonic bodies have contributed to growth. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 13 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.
• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 14 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.
• Fort Belknap — 21 mi
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.

More markers nearby

• Community of Jermyn — 7.1 mi
• Site of Loving Ranch House — 7.4 mi
• Lost Valley — 11 mi
• Hawkins Chapel — 12 mi