Pleasant Valley Farmers' Alliance No. 1

The movement grew slowly at first. To the state convention of August 1883 only thirty of almost 100 local alliances sent delegates. President W. L. Garvin then made S. O. Daws a full-time paid lecturer, and Daws carried a message that blamed hard times on "the capitalist" who held a farmer's confidence with one hand and rifled his pocket with the other. More than 600 delegates came in 1885. County alliances traded members' cash business for merchants' lowest prices, a deal farmers buying on credit could not use. The alliance eventually claimed almost three million members.

What the plaque says

Pleasant Valley Farmers' Alliance No. 1 First chapter of the Farmers' Alliance in Texas. Founded 1877, it became one of the strongest arms of the national agrarian reform movement of the era. The group was begun by John R. Allen on Donaldson Creek (1 mi. S) in a "rawhide" (rough) lumber school. Its main purpose was to improve ruinous farm living and economic conditions. Missing livestock were traced by 2 secret officers known as "Grand Smokies". In 1887 the 3,000 sub-alliances merged with the "Farmers' Union", then helped spark the Populist Party drive of the 1890's; but by 1900 they had died out. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hancock Springs Park — 8.5 mi
  Lampasas's city park on Sulphur Creek, with a spring-fed swimming pool that holds about 69 degrees all year, the walls of the old bathhouse and a golf course.
• Colorado Bend State Park — 13 mi
  Old ranch country on the Colorado above Lake Buchanan, where a spring-fed creek drops 70 feet over fern-covered travertine at Gorman Falls.

More markers nearby

• Nix — 4.5 mi
• Thomas Pratt — 7.0 mi
• Walter P. Acker — 7.0 mi
• James S. Gillett — 7.0 mi