Chambers' Creek

The creek carries the name of Thomas Jefferson Chambers, but the Handbook of Texas says Edward H. Tarrant bestowed it, honoring a friend. The settlement beside it began with William R. Howe around 1843, which makes Forreston the oldest in the county. The Handbook's county entry says Howe reportedly brought a Black woman believed to be the first enslaved person in Ellis County, so slavery arrived with the first settler. Capt. Carr Forrest, first postmaster, gave land for the Katy depot, and as businesses moved toward the tracks the town became Forreston.

What the plaque says

Chambers' Creek Named in honor of Thomas Jefferson Chambers (1802-1865) to whom the first land grant within present Ellis County was made in 1834 by the Mexican government also known as Howe's Settlement in honor of William R. Howe, first settler in the region in 1843. An early post office in Robertson County first county seat of Navarro county, 1846-1848.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Ellis County Courthouse — 10 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• Hill County Courthouse — 22 mi
  Wesley C. Dodson's limestone Second Empire courthouse of 1890 on the Hillsboro square, gutted by fire on New Year's Day 1993 and rededicated in 1999 after a rebuilding that two Willie Nelson concerts helped pay for.
• Petroleum Industry Park — 26 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.

More markers nearby

• Site of the Plantation Home of Edward H. Tarrant — 1.6 mi
• Shawnee Cattle Trail — 3.0 mi
• Cotton Industry in Ellis County — 3.1 mi
• Nash Public School — 3.8 mi