Cedar Gap Community

Cedar Gap's railroad was ambitious on paper. The Abilene and Southern was chartered in January 1909 to run about 160 miles south to Sonora, with a branch from Ballinger to San Angelo, and its directors included Abilene's Morgan Jones. Track reached only Ballinger, 54 miles out, by 1909, plus a short Anson-to-Hamlin line in 1911. The Texas and Pacific took it into its system in 1926, the Hamlin line was abandoned in 1937, and what remained joined the Missouri Pacific in 1978.

What the plaque says

Cedar Gap Community Originally named Coates for early settler Kem Coates, Cedar Gap community formed in the late 19th century. Coates, on whose land the post office was later located, arrived in the 1870s, and by the early 1880s, a number of families from Robertson County settled here. Residents soon organized Cedar Gap Baptist Church, which remained in existence until the 1970s. The Rev. G.c. Scott served as the first pastor. Cedar Gap grew as transportation improved. First served by the Cedar Gap Pike (later County Road 127), a stagecoach route running from Abilene South to Content, the community developed further as the Abilene & Southern Railway reached the area. Built in 1909, the railway ran from Abilene to San Angelo, passing through Cedar Gap, where the company constructed a frame waiting station. Contractors employed area residents to help build the railroad. Life in Cedar Gap revolved around a number of other institutions, including a school, which opened in the 1880s and first met in the Baptist church building before moving into its own structure in 1898. In the early 20th century, as the community grew, the school moved two more times, in 1908 and 1916, to accommodate the large number of students, eventually consolidating with the Tuscola district in 1948. Other community establishments included a blacksmith shop, general store, cotton gin and woodmen of the world lodge (no. 2184). Today, Cedar Gap Cemetery, located near the former church site and containing graves of early area settlers, serves as a reminder of this once-vibrant community. (2007)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 4.5 mi
  The 1880 stone courthouse and jail of the county seat Abilene took away, with about twenty old buildings from around West Texas gathered around it since 1956.
• Abilene State Park — 8.0 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.
• Frontier Texas! — 14 mi
  Abilene's multimedia museum of the frontier as the settlers told it, beside the Texas and Pacific tracks the town was built on, and the official visitor center for the Texas Forts Trail.
• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 24 mi
  A free museum in a Winters optometrist's office, a 1909 railroad hotel and a 1927 implement dealership, with Rogers Hornsby's hometown memorabilia and a 1912 horse-drawn cotton picker.

More markers nearby

• Taylor County — 1.5 mi
• Fletcher Ranch — 4.3 mi
• Vicinity of Indian Fight — 4.3 mi
• Town of Buffalo Gap — 4.3 mi