Capt. John Stephen Potts

The town that carries Potts's name came with a rule attached. The Handbook says Edmund T. Goggin donated the townsite and stipulated that liquor would never be sold there. A school opened in 1876 and a post office in 1879. In 1913 a fire destroyed every local business, and a cyclone in 1944 killed one person and did great damage. The gin closed in 1931. The man honored was a sheep raiser who arrived in 1872. Pottsville is in western Hamilton County on Cowhouse Creek, where Potts also gave the cemetery site.

What the plaque says

Capt. John Stephen Potts (1816 - 1901) Born in Bradley county, Tenn. married Malinda Davis, cousin of Jefferson Davis, president of the confederate states of America. Lived in Carthage, Mo., where he was justice of the peace, then sheriff (1850-52), and confederate soldier during the civil war. Moving to Texas, he paid $500 in gold for Hamilton county sheep range, 1872; later had more land. An ardent baptist, a mason, donor of cemetery site, he was honored in naming of Pottsville, 1878. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hamilton County Courthouse — 12 mi
  A limestone courthouse of 1886-87 on the Hamilton square, built after the county's 1878 courthouse burned, enlarged in the early 1930s and rededicated in 2012 after restoration.

More markers nearby

• Shive — 7.1 mi
• Site of Swann Hill School — 9.6 mi
• Mount Olive Primitive Baptist Church and Cemetery — 10 mi
• Lamkin — 10 mi