Jones County

Farmers followed the ranchers quickly. Jones County had 546 people in 1880, 3,797 in 1890 and 24,299 in 1910, its all-time high, as the Texas Central, Wichita Valley and Abilene and Southern railroads built in. Cotton took over: 25,000 acres in 1900, 110,458 in 1910 and 245,298 in 1930, more than two-thirds of the cultivated land. Tenancy rose with it, from 21 percent of farmers in 1890 to 57 percent in 1910 and 68 percent in 1930. Oil came in 1926 at the Noodle Creek field southwest of Anson.

What the plaque says

Site of emigrant trail, the frontier military road, and Fort Phantom Hill, founded in 1851 to guard the military road. County created 1858 from Bexar and Bosque counties. Named for Anson Jones (1798-1858), a veteran of San Jacinto, minister to the U.S., Secretary of State and last President of the Texas Republic. Phantom Hill, in 1858-1861 a Butterfield Overland Mail Station, was in 1861-1865 a Civil War patrol point, trying to curb frontier raids by Indians. The county was recreated in 1876, organized 1881. Anson (at first called Jones City) is county seat. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Phantom Hill — 15 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.
• Frontier Texas! — 23 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.

More markers nearby

• Fort Phantom Hill, C.S.A. — steps away
• Cowboys' Christmas Ball — 0.8 mi
• Site of Truby School — 8.3 mi
• Neinda Community — 11 mi