Cimmaron (Persimmon) Springs

The name changed with the people who came. Maps from 1875 and 1883 printed Cimarron Springs. Luxembourg immigrants who settled near it in the early 1890s, unfamiliar with the word, called the spring Persimmon after a tree growing nearby. Randolph B. Marcy had stopped here in 1849, and the trail he later laid out across North Texas passed by the water. The Luxembourg settlement failed by 1906, when rancher Sam Cowan bought the land. A 1979 measurement put the flow at only .015 gallons per second.

What the plaque says

Cimmaron (Persimmon) Springs (Four miles east off Cowan Road) The natural springs that flow near this site first appeared on early maps of the area as Cimmaron Springs. European immigrants who settled here in the early 1890s were unfamiliar with the word cimmaron and called it Persimmon Springs. The water source served early Native Americans, settlers and military parties and was a factor in settlement patterns and immigration routes. A garden spot in the midst of a dry, windy area, Cimmaron (Persimmon) Springs has been a well-known landmark since the earliest days of occupation in Archer County. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Royal Theater — 6.0 mi
  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 — 23 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.

More markers nearby

• Archer County — steps away
• Extinct Town of Anarene — 2.1 mi
• First Baptist Church of Archer City — 5.8 mi
• Archer City Methodist Church — 5.8 mi