Cyrus Campbell

Campbell moved to a town only two years old. The De Leon post office opened in 1881, and the name probably came from the Leon River, which Spanish explorers named in 1721 for Alonso De León. The first physician arrived in 1882, and the first newspaper, the De Leon Messenger, was printed that year. Settlers came from Southern states to grow cotton and raise cattle. The Handbook says the Republic of Texas paid Campbell five dollars for the leg irons, and that he and his wife were the first two people buried in the cemetery.

What the plaque says

Cyrus Campbell (October 11, 1810 - September 12, 1883) A blacksmith by trade, Cyrus Campbell migrated to Texas in 1828. He performed a number of jobs for the Republic of Texas, including the making of leg irons for Mexican General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna after his capture at San Jacinto in 1836. Married twice, Campbell moved to De Leon in 1883 and was active in the Methodist Church. According to tradition, he chose the site for the De Leon Cemetery. His was the first grave here. Recorded - 1981

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dublin Bottling Works — 12 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 — 26 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.
• Conrad Hilton Center and Mobley Hotel — 32 mi
  The 40-room oil-boom hotel in Cisco that Conrad Hilton bought in 1919 when a bank deal fell through, now a museum of the Hilton start and of Cisco's 1927 Santa Claus bank robbery.

More markers nearby

• Laura Valenta — 0.4 mi
• Texas Central Railroad — 0.5 mi
• De Leon Peanut Company — 0.5 mi
• Community of Comyn-Theney — 4.9 mi