Camp Cureton, C.S.A.

Camp Cureton was established on March 17, 1862, one of a number of posts the Confederate army set up to check raids along the frontier. Half the men of Capt. J. J. (Jack) Cureton's Frontier Regiment company manned it. The rangers lived in long buildings and kept their horses in a corral walled with rock. The camp was closed by March 1864, when the regiment was concentrated at Fort Belknap. By 1990 all that remained at the site were the corner rocks and the base of a chimney. The memorial on the courthouse lawn was placed in 1963.

What the plaque says

Star and Wreath Strategically established during Civil War on defense line Red River to Rio Grande where Gainesville-Fort Belknap Road crossed west fork Trinity River about 10 miles south, 4 miles east of Archer City. Texas Frontier Regiment patrolled area frequently to check Comanche raids. Poorly fed, lacking horses and ammunition, these rugged Confederates more effectively curbed Indians than U.S. had, protected supply trains, guarded against Union action. Named for Capt. Jack Cureton, Camp Commander, veteran Mexican, Indian Wars. A Memorial to Texans who served the Confederacy; Erected by the State of Texas 1963.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Royal Theater — steps away
  Archer City's movie house, burned in 1965, given a false front for The Last Picture Show and brought back by the town in the 1990s as a working stage on Main Street.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 18 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.
• Kell House Museum — 23 mi
  The 1909 Classic Revival house of Frank Kell, the miller and railroad builder who helped make Wichita Falls a city, shown by guided tour with its family furniture still in place.
• World's Littlest Skyscraper — 23 mi
  A four-story brick tower in downtown Wichita Falls, 40 feet tall and 10 feet wide, the leftover of a 1919 oil-boom office deal in which, the story goes, investors misread inches as feet.

More markers nearby

• Archer County Discovery Well — steps away
• A Jesse James Hideout — steps away
• Archer City Methodist Church — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Archer City — steps away