Site of Donnell Mill

The Handbook of Texas says W. L. and T. F. Donnell established ranches here in 1876 and built the flour mill a few years later; it stood as a landmark until fire destroyed it in 1927. A Presbyterian church organized in 1881 remained a strong force here. The oil boom of 1921 brought incorporation and quick growth, with banker W. T. Donnell as the first mayor. As production slowed people left, many for wartime defense work in Fort Worth. A city lake was finished in 1952, and in 2000 Eliasville had 150 people and five businesses.

What the plaque says

After heartbreaking failures, James D. Donnell; his wife, Julia; and sons, Will and Tom, finished the dam and mill here in 1876. The mill withstood floods and began turning out meal and flour for a vast region. It operated almost half a century. The Donnells had migrated from Missouri to Texas, and Young County. Their mill yard was the community gathering place. Crossing river here was San Antonio to Austin to Fort Belknap Military Road of 1850s, used by famed 2nd U.S. Cavalry, under Albert S. Johnston and Robert E. Lee. Also nearby was site of 1850s community of Clear Fork, settled by George, William, and Jonathan Lee Dobbs, Rev. Pleasant Tackitt, and others. Indian marauders drove away most settlers. But in 1876 J. L Dobbs returned to claim his land. Also in 1876 Elias De Long opened a store that became the post office. (To his name the Post Office Department added "ville", titling the place Eliasville.) In 1893 a bridge was built here; the present bridge in 1957. Among other settlers were Captain Joseph Benedict and wife Adele, granddaughter of the colonizer W. S. Peters. Their son, Harry Yandell Benedict, became 10th president of the University of Texas. A successor in that office, Homer Price Rainey, also grew up here. (1999)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Belknap — 13 mi
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 14 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.
• Fort Griffin State Historic Site — 27 mi
  The ruins of an 1867 cavalry post on a plateau above the Clear Fork of the Brazos, judged unfit for habitation and used nine more years, now home to the official state longhorn herd.

More markers nearby

• The Tonk Valley Community — 10 mi
• Murray Methodist Church — 10 mi
• Colonel William C. Young — 13 mi
• Tonkawa Scouts, C.S.A. — 13 mi