Bucksnort

The Handbook of Texas traces Bucksnort to a 320-acre prairie owned by Thomas J. Chambers, where Jarrett Menefee worked as overseer. The brothers Laban and Jarrett Menefee came with the Marlins to the east side of the Brazos after the Runaway Scrape, and Robertson County held elections at or near Menefee's place in 1838. Menefee bought the tract in February 1845. His heirs sold it to J. E. Francks, who sold it to the Barton brothers, and they ran a ranch there. Settlers drifted to safer and newer land, and the Handbook calls the community extinct by about 1852.

What the plaque says

Bucksnort This area was first settled in 1837 by members of the Marlin and Menefee families. The settlement grew steadily, and for a time was known as Jarett Menefee's Supply Station. By the 1840s the village boasted a school, general store, blacksmith shop, racetrack, stable, saloon, stagecoach stop, and post office. According to local legend, the name Bucksnort was coined by an inebriated patron of the saloon. By the 1850s, as settlers moved into other areas in the county, Bucksnort was no longer a viable community. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Armstrong Browning Library — 23 mi
  A three-story Italian Renaissance library on the Baylor campus built to hold A. J. Armstrong's Browning collection, dedicated in December 1951 and now, by its own account, the world's largest of Browning material.
• Texas Ranger Hall of Fame and Museum — 24 mi
  The official state repository of Texas Ranger memorabilia, opened in 1968 in Fort Fisher Park on the Brazos, named for a Ranger post of 1837 whose site no one has located.
• Dr Pepper Museum — 24 mi
  The 1906 bottling plant of the Artesian Manufacturing and Bottling Company, built where Dr Pepper outgrew a Waco drugstore soda fountain, now the Dr Pepper Museum.
• Waco Suspension Bridge — 24 mi
  A Brazos crossing opened in January 1870 as the longest single-span suspension bridge west of the Mississippi, tolled until 1889, closed to vehicles in 1971 and now walked.

More markers nearby

• Rev. Nelson T. Denson and Marlin Missionary Baptist Church — 1.9 mi
• Falls of the Brazos River — 2.3 mi
• Hilton Hotel, Early — 2.4 mi
• Hot Mineral Water — 2.4 mi