Fort Chadbourne

The name outlived the fort. When the soldiers left, settlers first gathered around the old post, then built a new town about four miles southwest, and a post office that had closed in 1866 reopened in 1879. By 1892 the town had a store and twenty-five people. When the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient built through about 1910, the community moved a mile east onto a townsite donated by W. D. McDonald. It soon had a newspaper, hotel, bank, gin, school and two churches, then shrank until the post office closed for good in 1942.

What the plaque says

Fort Chadbourne Established by the United States Army, October 28, 1852, as a protection to frontier settlers against Indians named in honor of Lieutenant T.L. Chadbourne, killed at Resaca de la Palma, May 9, 1846, occupied by federal troops, 1852-1867. An important station on the Butterfield Overland stage route, 1858 - 1861.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Chadbourne — 0.7 mi
  An 1852 infantry post and Butterfield stage station on a Coke County ranch, its fallen stone buildings rebuilt since 1999 by the descendant of the family that has ranched the land since 1877.
• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 18 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.
• Abilene State Park — 24 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.
• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 27 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.

More markers nearby

• Route of the Southern Overland Mail Line — steps away
• Southern Overland Mail, 1858-1861 — 2.7 mi
• Site of Old Communities of Mazeland and Wilmeth — 8.8 mi
• Valley Creek Station — 10 mi