Roosevelt

Roosevelt served the area's sheep and goat ranchers as a shipping point for feed and supplies. The Patterson and Riek Ranch, founded in 1897, imported Angora goats from South Africa in 1925. In the 1920s the community hosted polo matches, since local ranchers bred polo ponies for national markets and horses for the U.S. Cavalry, and tourism brought new businesses such as the Luthringer Hotel. About 100 people lived there from 1941 into the mid-1980s. By 1990 the town was known for the Marc-Key Company nursery, which shipped 35,000 poinsettias that year; fourteen people remained in 2000.

What the plaque says

Roosevelt The community of Roosevelt began with the establishment of a post office in 1898. Although Alice Wagner applied for the post office with another name, the postal service in Washington substituted the name Roosevelt presumably in honor of Theodore Roosevelt, whose Rough Riders visited the area prior to their legendary Spanish-American War service. Two military roads traversed this area and Roosevelt became a social center for surrounding ranch families. In addition to the post office Roosevelt included a masonic lodge, churches, stores and a school. (1997)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Kimble County Historical Museum — 17 mi
  A free county museum in Junction, the town at the meeting of the North and South Llano, with the papers, photographs and tools of a ranching county.
• Fort McKavett State Historic Site — 23 mi
  The post Sherman called the prettiest in Texas, home to soldiers of all four Buffalo Soldier regiments and then to a town that lived in its buildings until 1973.

More markers nearby

• Fort McKavett - Fort Clark Military Road — 0.4 mi
• Coalson-Pullen Colony — 3.1 mi
• Captain Gully Cowsert — 4.7 mi
• Doom of the Outlaws of Pegleg Station — 12 mi