Palo Pinto County

The plaque calls the county a favored Indian locality. The Handbook of Texas shows what that meant for a Native party in December 1858. Choctaw Tom and his party of seventeen had permission to hunt for a week and camped on Ioni Creek a few miles above Golconda. On the night of December 26 they were attacked: seven were found dead in their blankets and four wounded. Agent Robert Neighbors learned the attackers were White men from Erath County. A trial was set at Waco, but no indictments were made. The 1860 census counted 130 enslaved people among 1,524.

What the plaque says

Palo Pinto County Created August 27, 1856, from Navarro and Bosque counties; organized in 1857. Spanish name Palo Pinto refers to spotted oak, a common regional tree having bark with a mottled appearance. Good hunting and abundant water made area a favored indian locality. The first anglo-american settlers arrived in 1850's, including Texas cattlemen and trail-blazers Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving. The discovery, in 1880, of mineral water and arrival of Texas & Pacific railroad brought an influx of settlers and helped establish a strong economy. The county seat, first named Golconda in 1856, was renamed Palo Pinto in 1858. Erected by the State of Texas -1973

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Lake Mineral Wells State Park and Trailway — 17 mi
  A Cross Timbers park on the old Camp Wolters grounds, built around a 1922 water-supply lake for a spa town, with Penitentiary Hollow's rock climbing and a 20-mile trailway.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 28 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.

More markers nearby

• Palo Pinto Cemetery — 1.3 mi
• Courthouses of Palo Pinto County — 1.6 mi
• Old County Jail — 1.6 mi
• George Webb Slaughter — 5.6 mi