Crews

The Handbook of Texas dates the Crews school to 1888 and says J. D. Wise and a Mr. Broughton opened the post office and store in 1892. The post office closed in 1922, and by 1940 Crews had one business and 150 people. Its school closed in the 1940s and the Baptist church disbanded in 1968, so that by 1970 the Methodist church was all that remained of Crews. In the early 2000s a Texas Almanac survey estimated thirty residents, though people in the area said the townsite was virtually abandoned.

What the plaque says

Settled in 1880s. Named for C. R. Crews, Ballinger businessman. Mrs. Betty Sims was earliest voluntary teacher-mail carrier. School was built 1890 (with the Rev. Mr. Lockhart, first teacher). Post office established 1892 in Wise and brought store; first postmaster, J. D. Wise. Methodist church was organized in 1890; Baptist church in 1894. Later 11 businesses were in operation; by 1930 school had 7 teachers. The doctors serving longest were F. M. Hale, C. A. Watson, R. E. Burrus. Post office closed 1922; school consolidated with others 1948. The churches are still active. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 11 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.
• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 17 mi
  A 1909 limestone library with an Ionic portico in a railroad town the Santa Fe created in 1886, one of the few Texas Carnegie libraries still working in its original building.
• Abilene State Park — 22 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.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 24 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.

More markers nearby

• Old Townsite of Content — 7.3 mi
• Ranger Campsite — 7.4 mi
• Ranger Peak — 7.4 mi
• Cotton Production in Runnels County — 7.4 mi