Fleming Oak

The square around the Fleming Oak has held several courthouses. After the move from Cora, the county used a picket house of logs set upright in a trench, built about 1859; the commissioners' minutes record its burning in March 1862. The county then rented space until a two-story red-brick courthouse was finished about 1875 and served into the late 1880s. A three-story stone courthouse followed and stood from 1891 to 1939, when the present Art Deco building replaced it. The Handbook says Comanche's first post office opened in 1860.

What the plaque says

Fleming Oak Camped here in 1854 with his father, young Martin V. Fleming hid behind this tree and saved himself when hostile Indians rode through the grove. Years later paving contractors started to cut the oak, but were stopped by "Uncle Mart" with his gun. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Dublin Bottling Works — 20 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.
• Lake Brownwood State Park — 25 mi
  A CCC park on a reservoir that filled in a single flood before its dam was done, with stone cabins, a hilltop dance pavilion and a grand staircase climbed by dancers arriving by boat.

More markers nearby

• General Ashbel Smith, C.S.A. — steps away
• Indian Raid in Comanche — steps away
• Old Cora Courthouse — steps away
• Robert Thomas Hill — steps away