J. D. Windham

Tecumseh, where Dr. Windham is buried, took its name from the Tecumseh range of mountains. His sons Tod, Cal and Tom came first, building a camp house here in 1874, and their parents followed. The Handbook of Texas adds that the doctor also started a ranch in the southwestern part of the county, which his sons ran. A post office opened on February 26, 1886, with W. E. Gilliland as postmaster, and Gilliland printed a small paper, the Tecumseh Banner, until November 17, 1887. The town counted twenty-nine people in 1890, and the post office closed in 1909.

What the plaque says

(Feb. 13, 1816 - Jan. 11, 1901) Born in Alabama, moved to Texas 1839. Married Frances Monteith and had nine children. Was first doctor in Brown County, 1865; and in Callahan County, 1874; owned general store; planted county's first orchard here in Tecumseh. Recorded 1966.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 15 mi
  The 1880 stone courthouse and jail of the county seat Abilene took away, with about twenty old buildings from around West Texas gathered around it since 1956.
• Abilene State Park — 17 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.
• Frontier Texas! — 19 mi
  Abilene's multimedia museum of the frontier as the settlers told it, beside the Texas and Pacific tracks the town was built on, and the official visitor center for the Texas Forts Trail.
• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 26 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.

More markers nearby

• First Anglican Church Service in the Callahan Area — 3.3 mi
• Taylor County — 11 mi
• Old Townsite of Content — 13 mi
• Cotton Production in Runnels County — 13 mi