Site of Fort Lyday

Fort Lyday sheltered 25 to 30 families who lived and farmed together. The Fannin County Historical Commission's account says the compound covered about a quarter acre, with ten-by-twelve-foot storerooms along the north wall and living rooms of the same size around the rest, hand-hewn post oak floors, a picket palisade, a corral and a rock-lined well ten feet across in the open parade ground. Isaac Lyday, his brothers, neighbors and their enslaved people held it alone until 1838. Researchers pinpointed the site in 1965. The older Lyday cemetery holds the area's oldest Black and white settlers.

What the plaque says

Site of Fort Lyday Early Texas pioneer Isaac Lyday built a fort in this area soon after settling here in 1836. The compound, located .75 mi. E. and .5 mi. N. of the old Lyday Crossing on the North Sulphur River, consisted of living quarters, storerooms, and a large community well. Many local families gathered inside the fort during Indian raids. Due to an increase in these raids, the area was almost abandoned by Anglo settlers until Texas Ranger Captain William B. Stout arrived in 1838 to organize a Ranger force. Lyday was elected captain of the company and served until 1839. Fort Lyday continued to shelter settlers until the raids subsided ca. 1843, and the fort was eventually abandoned. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cooper Lake State Park — 15 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 21 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Evergreen Cemetery — 22 mi
  Paris's town cemetery since 1866, with a carved-stone gallery that includes the Babcock monument in cowboy boots, and the grave of the three-year-old whose death led to the 1893 lynching of Henry Smith.
• Sam Bell Maxey House State Historic Site — 22 mi
  The Italian-villa-style house in Paris, finished in 1868 with a lawyer's fees, where a Confederate major general turned U.S. senator and two later generations of his family lived.

More markers nearby

• Site of Dial Schools — 1.7 mi
• Giles Academy — 5.0 mi
• First Baptist Church of Ladonia — 5.1 mi
• Ladonia Cemetery — 5.1 mi