Jacob Pope And Elizabeth Ann Barnes

G. H. Ramey Jr.'s late-1930s manuscript history of Trinity, held at the Trinity County Museum, says the first store in town belonged to A. J. Frisby, who sold it to Mr. Clegg; Clegg moved it nearer the railroad, where produce was easier to carry from the train. Barnes and Lister, Ramey writes, owned a larger store beside the International and Great Northern's cattle loading pen, and one of the first church services was held in its back. They also owned a saloon, he adds, on the site of Cochran's Pharmacy.

What the plaque says

Jacob Pope And Elizabeth Ann Barnes Mississippi natives Jacob Pope Barnes (1832-1877) and Elizabeth Ann Rankin (1834-1912) were wed on June 12th, 1860. They moved to Texas in 1866 and came to Trinity in 1872. Jacob opened a mercantile store in partnership with Frank Lister and was serving as county treasurer at the time of his death. Widowed at age 43, Elizabeth reared nine children and operated the mercantile store with the help of her eldest son, Samuel Edward (1861-1914). (1986)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas Prison Museum — 19 mi
  A Huntsville museum on the history of the Texas prison system, where the electric chair Old Sparky, used for 361 executions from 1924 to 1964, is shown beside the rodeo and the escapes.
• Sam Houston Memorial Museum — 19 mi
  A 15-acre Huntsville campus with Sam Houston's Woodland Home and the Steamboat House where he died in 1863, a museum, an education center gallery and free grounds open dawn to dusk.
• Huntsville State Park — 24 mi
  A Walker County pine-forest park on Lake Raven, built from 1937 by a Civilian Conservation Corps company of African American veterans, with 21 miles of trails and 160 campsites.

More markers nearby

• Cedar Grove Cemetery — steps away
• Waco, Beaumont, Trinity & Sabine Railroad — 0.3 mi
• Trinity Volunteer Fire Department — 0.4 mi
• Charles Nesbitt "Charlie" Wilson — 0.4 mi