Historical Marker
Hardeman County
Quanah, Hardeman County · Texas
Erected 1936
Lipan Apaches held this region first, Wichitas later settled along the Red River, and after 1700 Comanches (Numunuu) and Kiowas came south to hunt. The Handbook of Texas says rustling was among the principal industries in the 1870s and 1880s, as thieves crossed the county toward the Red River and Indian Territory. Wilbarger County handled its legal affairs from 1881 to 1884, and the county's population rose from forty-nine in 1880 to 3,904 in 1890. In the 1890 county-seat election, the Handbook says, railroad crews became residents by having their laundry done in Quanah for six weeks.
What the plaque says
Created February 1, 1858 Recreated August 21, 1876 Organized December 30, 1884 Named in honor of Bailey Hardeman, 1785-1836, signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and Thomas Jones Hardeman, 1788-1854 member of the Texas Congress and Legislature. County seat, Margarette, 1884-1890 Quanah, since, in honor of Quanah Parker, a Comanche chief
Where it stands
34.29191, -99.75157 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Quanah, Acme and Pacific Depot Museum — 0.8 miThe Spanish Colonial Revival depot of a little railroad that set out for El Paso and never got past Floydada, now Hardeman County's museum alongside the county's 1890 jail.
- Copper Breaks State Park — 12 miRed badlands on the Pease River between Quanah and Crowell, streaked with the green copper that lured a Civil War general here to mine, with longhorns and a dark-sky designation.
- Fire Hall Museum — 21 miCrowell's local museum in the 1922 firehouse on Main Street, in a county-seat town that was almost wiped away by the tornado of April 1942 and rebuilt.
- Red River Valley Museum — 26 miVernon's museum on College Drive, with rooms on the Waggoner ranch empire, Doan's Crossing and early Vernon, and the largest known collection of Electra Waggoner Biggs's art.