Rich Coffey House

Richard Coffey was born in Georgia on February 14, 1823, the Handbook of Texas says. He married Sarah Greathouse of Decatur County, Georgia, in 1849, and the couple had six children; in 1855 they moved to Parker County, where he served in the Texas Rangers. He wore bearskin clothes, a buffalo robe and cape and long hair, and he inspired a minor character in John H. Culp's 1959 novel Born of the Sun. A Baptist, he was a charter member of Masonic lodges in Brownwood, Coleman and Paint Rock, and he was buried in Paint Rock.

What the plaque says

Rich Coffey (1823-1897) was a prominent pioneer and settler in the part of the state that now encompasses Runnels and Concho counties. In 1862 Coffey moved his family, cattle, and cowboys to a site near present day Ballinger. Several years later he established a settlement at the confluence of the Colorado and Concho rivers. In addition to raising cattle, freighting, and trading in salt, Coffey served as a Coleman County commissioner, participated in the first county grand jury, and started a post office in 1879. Jonathan Cook, an Irish stonemason, was hired to build a rock house for Coffey in 1880. The house was completed in 1881 as a one-and-a-half-story dogrun structure with exterior chimneys and a staircase in the dogrun that led to a loft. Outstanding features included the quality of the masonry construction and the particular dogrun configuration which was a form common to wooden structures in Coffey's home state of Georgia, but unusual for masonry buildings in central and west Texas. In 1989 the Rich Coffey house was moved to this site to avoid inundation by the construction of nearby Lake Ivie. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 18 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.

More markers nearby

• Site of Mission San Clemente — 1.2 mi
• Community of Concho — 5.7 mi
• Site of Flat Top Settlement — 7.3 mi
• John S. Chisum, Confederate Beef Contractor — 12 mi