Fort Blair, C.S.A.

After the war the old fort land passed in 1875 to William and Ben Funderburg, and a town grew there. Its post office, opened by 1877, was named Desdemona for the daughter of the justice of the peace, though for years people called the town Hogtown after Hog Creek. Trade and farming, mostly peanuts, carried the economy. Socialism grew in the early twentieth century, but the Handbook of Texas says rivalry never got rougher than a yearly picnic and baseball game, Socialists against Democrats. The town had 340 people by 1904.

What the plaque says

A few miles to the southwest. Largest far western "family fort" used throughout Civil War. Started by C.C. Blair, 1857 settler. 1861-1865 occupants were Wm. Arthur, Blair, J.M. Ellison; Jasper, Jim and Tom Gilbert; W.C. McGough, W.H. Mansker and sometimes others. The fort had 12 log cabins, 14 ft. square, 14 ft. apart in two parallel rows. Pickets walled spaces between cabins. Ammunition and supplies could be bought only by making long, dangerous trips to the Brazos settlements or to the south. Men were hard to spare for a trip, from the fort's defenders against Indians. Candles, soap, soda, food, clothing were made in the fort, by use of fat renderings, beeswax, wood ashes, wild herbs, bark, roots, berries, animal skins. Families had to promote education for their children. Other area forts included Allen's Ranch, also in Eastland County; Lynch and Green Ranches, Shackelford County; Buffalo Springs, Clay County; Bragg's and Murray's Forts, Young County; Picketville, Fort Davis, Owls Head and Mugginsville, Stephens County. After the war, Desdemona was established as a stop on the Old Waco-Ft. Griffin Road. It boomed to fame when oil was discovered in 1918. Its call for help to end lawlessness added new glory to Texas Rangers. (19650

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Rip at the Eastland County Courthouse — 18 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 — 27 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

• Desdemona First Baptist Church — 0.3 mi
• Desdemona Cemetery — 0.5 mi
• Site of Blackwell Hospital — 8.2 mi
• Old Shinoak Springs — 9.5 mi