James Harrison Parramore

Parramore moved to Runnels County in 1879 and set up headquarters on Elm Creek, six miles from the place later called Runnels City. On June 7, 1881, he and his partner Hugh Lewis bid on seventeen parcels and bought 8,565 acres for $153.83 plus deed fees, and by 1886 they held more than fifty-eight sections. In 1891 they restocked the longhorn range with Herefords, and Parramore became sole owner. Before rail shipping, his cattle were trailed to Dodge City and Kansas City. In the Civil War he served with Terry's Texas Rangers.

What the plaque says

(August 13, 1840 - July 4, 1917) Born in Georgia to Rebecca (Norwood) and William W. Parramore, James Harrison Parramore moved with his family to Gonzales County in 1849. James attended Gonzales College before joining the Confederate Army. He married Mary Jane Goodson in 1866; they began their life together farming 100 acres of land near Gonzales. Parramore formed a partnership with his brother-in-law, Hugh Lewis, that launched their careers as prominent southwestern ranchers. After several years in Runnels County, Parramore bought ten acres west of Hickory Street in Abilene for his large family in 1881. The San Simon Cattle and Canal Company was organized in 1883 by Parramore, Lewis, and Claiborne W. Merchant. The company stocked its vast Arizona and New Mexico ranches with Texas longhorns for twenty years. J. H. Parramore was active in local, state, and national organizations for cattlemen. A member of the board of trustees of Simmons College, he donated $10,000 for a dormitory named Mary-Frances Hall. The home that J. H. Parramore shared with his wife and ten children was located at 810 Orange Street in the area later developed by his heirs as the Parramore addition. A Victorian mansion with French Second Empire details, the home was dismantled in 1960. (1998)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Frontier Texas! — 0.8 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.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 13 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.
• Fort Phantom Hill — 13 mi
  A field of lone stone chimneys north of Abilene, left by the fire after the Army left in 1854, later a stage stop and a buffalo-hide town of more than 500 people.
• Abilene State Park — 18 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.

More markers nearby

• Abilene Reporter-News — 0.5 mi
• The Texas & Pacific Railway: First Railroad Across West Texas — 0.6 mi
• Childers Classical Institute — 0.7 mi
• Taylor, Edward, James, & George — 0.8 mi