Maverick

The Handbook of Texas says Maverick's post office opened in postmaster Marion Cobb's store in 1883, that the community later moved a mile east, and that a school started in 1889. At its peak Maverick had three stores, three churches, two gas stations, a barbershop and a Woodmen of the World hall. It had sixty-nine people in 1940 and thirty-one from 1980 through 2000. Its namesake left a small herd on Matagorda Peninsula in 1847, and those cattle, allowed to wander, gave rise to the word maverick for an unbranded calf.

What the plaque says

Founded in the 1870s. Named for Samuel A. Maverick (1803-1870), who came to Texas 1835. Fought in the Texas War for Independence. In Secession Convention, 1861, he was made one of the commissioners to negotiate surrender of United States troops in San Antonio. In 1853 he had land in this important ranching area. (1964)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Chadbourne — 14 mi
  An 1852 infantry post and Butterfield stage station on a Coke County ranch, its fallen stone buildings rebuilt since 1999 by the descendant of the family that has ranched the land since 1877.
• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 16 mi
  A 1909 limestone library with an Ionic portico in a railroad town the Santa Fe created in 1886, one of the few Texas Carnegie libraries still working in its original building.
• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 16 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

• Norton — 5.0 mi
• First Baptist Church of Bronte — 6.3 mi
• Tennyson — 8.0 mi
• Site of Old Communities of Mazeland and Wilmeth — 11 mi