Mobeetie

The Handbook of Texas calls Mobeetie the mother city of the Panhandle. Bat Masterson, Pat Garrett and Poker Alice came through the hide camp, and Henry Fleming, later the county's first sheriff, built a rock house across the creek and opened the first saloon. In the 1880s the main street held livery stables, wagonyards, a barbershop, a drugstore, a Chinese laundry, a blacksmith shop, two hotels and boarding houses, and Rath and Hamburg's store supplied the ranches. The town counted 300 residents in 1886 and 400 in 1890, but only 128 by 1900.

What the plaque says

Mobeetie Oldest town in Texas Panhandle. Originally a trading post, 2 mi. south, 1874; moved nearer to Fort Elliott, 1875. Earlier called Sweetwater, was renamed in 1879. Courthouse was completed by Mark Huselby, first county tax assessor, and other citizens. Popular with hunters, cowboys, gamblers - town in1881 became judicial center of 35th District. Temple Houston, son of the hero Sam Houston, was district attorney and the first state senator for this district. After bypass by the Santa Fe Railroad (1888) and a destructive 1898 tornado, Mobeetie declined. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Mobeetie Jail Museum — 0.4 mi
  The 1886 stone jail of the Panhandle's first county seat, the buffalo hunters' Hidetown on Sweetwater Creek that ran the courts for fifteen counties before losing its fort, railroad hopes and county seat.
• Roberts County Museum — 16 mi
  The county museum in Miami's old Santa Fe depot, holding mammoth bones and Clovis points from a 1934 dig, in the cow town that has held a cow-calling contest since 1949.
• Devil's Rope and Old Route 66 Museum — 22 mi
  Barbed wire and the Texas road in McLean's old brassiere factory: the fence that closed the open range, from the salesmen who sold it to the Panhandle ranches it divided.
• Phillips 66 Station, McLean — 22 mi
  A 1929 cottage-style Phillips 66 station on First Street in McLean, the town I-40 went around last and whose Route 66 business district stayed much as it was.

More markers nearby

• Captain G. W. Arrington — 0.5 mi
• Frank Willis, Sr. — 0.5 mi
• Emanuel Dubbs — 0.5 mi
• Temple Lea Houston — 0.5 mi