Site of Griffin

Isaac Kendrick established the town in 1853 on the old Tyler-to-Rusk road and named it for his hometown of Griffin, Georgia. A post office called Troutman served the spot from 1853 to 1855, when the name changed to Griffin. During the Civil War the town had a two-story hotel, a Masonic lodge and a general store. The post office was suspended from 1868 to 1876 and ran until 1906. A school had 46 pupils by 1897. After World War II the town steadily declined, and it reported 21 residents in 1990.

What the plaque says

Site of Griffin Founded by settlers who came from Griffin, Georgia. In the early 1850s became a flourishing town. Birthplace of John Benjamin Kendrick (1857-1933), Texas cowboy who settled in Wyoming in 1879 after going up the trail for years with herds of cattle. He served in Wyoming State Senate, 1910-1914, Governor, 1914-1916, then as U.S. Senator, 1916-1933. Town of Griffin gradually lost people and businesses to railroad towns after 1872. Last store here was closed 1930. (1965)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 16 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 26 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.
• Tyler Rose Garden and Rose Museum — 26 mi
  More than 38,000 rose bushes of about 600 cultivars in a free city garden, beside a museum of the Texas Rose Festival, which began in 1933, and of the rose industry.
• East Texas Oil Museum — 26 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.

More markers nearby

• Robert Graves Stadler — 1.3 mi
• Emmaus — 2.1 mi
• New Summerfield Public School — 4.1 mi
• Knoxville — 4.1 mi