Claiborne Walker Merchant

Merchant bought his stake in the future town before the railroad contract was signed. In August 1880, at John N. Simpson's Hashknife Ranch, he purchased 1,700 acres in what became central Abilene. He moved his family to Taylor County in 1882, built a rock house on what is now Merchant Street the next year, and became president of the First National Bank of Abilene in May 1884. The Handbook of Texas credits him with being, supposedly, the first to call roads for farmers' produce farm-to-market roads. With James H. Parramore he helped start Abilene's Masonic Cemetery.

What the plaque says

(August 31, 1836 - March 9, 1926) Claiborne W. Merchant and his twin, John, were born in Nacogdoches. "Clabe" married Frances Bell in 1856. He served in the Confederate army and later became a cattle rancher. Merchant established his first ranch in 1874 in Callahan County and began acquiring land in neighboring Taylor County prior to the arrival of the railroad in 1881. When Abilene was established, Merchant, a city founder, named the new town after Abilene, Kansas. For many years he contributed his time and money to the development of Abilene. He is lauded as a respected benefactor and beloved citizen. Recorded - 1999

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Frontier Texas! — 0.6 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.
• Fort Phantom Hill — 13 mi
  A field of lone stone chimneys north of Abilene, left by the fire after the Army left in 1854, later a stage stop and a buffalo-hide town of more than 500 people.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 13 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 — 18 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.

More markers nearby

• James Winford Hunt — steps away
• Willis, Thomas Middlebrook — steps away
• Morgan Jones — 0.2 mi
• Abilene Reporter-News — 0.8 mi