Site of Norman Springs & Norman Grove

The Handbook of Texas tells a harder 1851 than the plaque's peaceable camps. It says that year the Caddo, written there as Caddo Indians, led an uprising that forced many early settlers to abandon their homes, most of which were later burned, and that no other serious conflict followed. It adds that no permanent Native villages stood in what became Johnson County, though Tonkawas, Kickapoos, Anadarkos, Caddos and Wacos hunted there. The plaque has Caddo neighbors living peaceably beside the Balch family at these springs that year; the Handbook does not say where the uprising happened.

What the plaque says

Site of Norman Springs & Norman Grove William Balch (1804-1870) claimed land around this site as a member of the Peters Colony in 1849. When he returned with his family in 1851, they found a group of Caddo Indians camping on one side of the springs. The Balch family built their cabin on the other side and lived peaceably with their neighbors. Other Caddo were living in the area that became Alvarado. Like the new settlers, they were attracted by the abundance of fresh water. The springs were located on the road from Birdville and Fort Worth to Hillsboro, Waco, Ft. Graham and other destinations. William Balch founded the town of Alvarado in 1854 and the family moved into town. Joe (1798-1882) and Sarah (1797-1897) Shaw and their family settled here and farmed the land. Joe Shaw was a three-term county sheriff. With settlers coming in increasing numbers, the Caddo Indians moved to the Oklahoma territory or further west, and by 1860 the area was dominated by new settlers. Tennessee native Lafayette Norman (1826-1904), veteran of the U. S. war with Mexico and later the Confederate Army, purchased 245 acres around this site with his third wife Julia In 1872. The Normans supplied thirsty and weary travelers with access to their spring; the site became known as Norman Springs and Norman Grove. A seven-year drought in the 1930s and a five-year drought in the 1950s significantly reduced the water table in this region. Norman Springs slowly became little more than a muddy patch. By the dawn of the 21st century, the once free-flowing spring that provided priceless fresh water to the early Indians and pioneer settlers of the Johnson County frontier was marked only by a willow tree. (2000)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cedar Ridge Preserve — 22 mi
  A 633-acre Audubon Dallas preserve at the western edge of Dallas County, with about nine miles of trails through prairie, woodland and escarpment hills.
• Cleburne State Park — 22 mi
  A 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps park on the old Chisholm Trail crossing country, with a spring-fed lake, a hand-carved three-tiered spillway and a CCC bridge in Johnson County.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 22 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.
• National Cowgirl Museum and Hall of Fame — 24 mi
  A hall of fame begun in Hereford in 1975 to honor rodeo women, widened in 1977 to Western heritage, and housed in Fort Worth's Cultural District since 2002.

More markers nearby

• Balch-Senterwood Cemetery — 1.2 mi
• Alvarado — 1.2 mi
• Outlaws Benjamin Bickerstaff and Josiah Thompson — 1.2 mi
• Site of Ezell-McLeroy Cotton Gin — 1.5 mi