Community of Comyn-Theney

The pipe outlived the tent city. In 1918 the Humble Pipe Line Company built a pipeline connecting Comyn with its terminal at Webster, and between 1924 and 1926 it extended the Comyn line west to Kempner and lengthened the trunk line between Comyn and Webster. Falling West Texas output then drained the town. A post office opened in 1909 and closed in the late 1950s. By 1980 most businesses had gone, but an oil company office and a pumping station remained. The Handbook counted forty residents in 2000, and a peanut company stood there in 1976.

What the plaque says

Community of Comyn-Theney During the rapid settlement of this area following the removal of the Indian threat, about 1875, a rural community developed here. Besides a few homes and a school, it had a trading post-store, operated by W. F. Matheney. His name, shortened to "Theney" for business purposes also came to designate the town. Among the pioneer families was that of B. F. Barnes, at nearby Jones Crossing, 1876. His great-grandson Ben Barnes, Lt. Gov. of Texas, was reared in Comyn-Theney. During 1881 the Texas Central Railroad was built through here and a depot established. M. T. Comyn, a railroad official, succeeded in having the town and depot named for him, but the school remained Theney. Soon the settlement could boast several general stores, a post office, drug store, blacksmith shop, lumber yard, cotton gin, cafe, barber shop, and a hall for the Woodmen of the World. In 1918, when Humble Pipeline Company began building a tank farm here to store oil from new West Texas fields, a tent city of several hundred sprang up. But when construction ceased in 1919, the townspeople moved away. Theney Consolidated School, formed in 1924, soon built a new plant and became an outstanding high school. Declining attendance caused it to close, 1952. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dublin Bottling Works — 7.4 mi
  The Erath County plant that bottled Dr Pepper with cane sugar from 1891 until a 2012 settlement ended its Dr Pepper license, and that still makes its own sodas the same way.
• Old Rip at the Eastland County Courthouse — 30 mi
  A horned lizard in a glass-topped casket in the 1928 Eastland courthouse, the creature said to have come out alive from the old building's cornerstone after thirty-one years.

More markers nearby

• Laura Valenta — 4.5 mi
• De Leon Peanut Company — 4.5 mi
• Texas Central Railroad — 4.5 mi
• Cyrus Campbell — 4.9 mi