Site of the Old City Spring

Cleburne's land came from donors, and the Handbook of Texas follows one of them into national politics. Barzillai J. Chambers, a surveyor and lawyer, joined W. F. Henderson in 1867 in giving the land for the county seat. Chambers opened a private bank in 1871, later published a Greenback paper in Cleburne, and in 1880 was nominated for vice president on James B. Weaver's Greenback ticket. A fall from a train that July broke two ribs and ended his campaign. He died in 1895.

What the plaque says

Site of the Old City Spring Early-day watering spot for explorers, Confederate Camp Henderson, settlers. People came many miles to wash, haul water, visit. At a nickel a bucket, boys "toted" water to merchants. Brick-lined pool often was dipped dry, but spring always refilled it. First city well tapped source. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cleburne State Park — 11 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.
• Acton State Historic Site — 18 mi
  The smallest state historic site in Texas, a grave plot holding Elizabeth Crockett, widow of David Crockett, under a 1913 statue of a pioneer woman shading her eyes toward the west.
• Granbury Courthouse Square — 24 mi
  A National Register square of limestone storefronts around W. C. Dodson's Second Empire courthouse, whose clock tower citizens saved after a 1968 tornado.
• Dinosaur Valley State Park — 26 mi
  Theropod and sauropod trackways of about 113 million years ago in the bed of the Paluxy River, a National Natural Landmark where R. T. Bird found the first distinct sauropod tracks in 1937.

More markers nearby

• City Wagon Yards — steps away
• Cleburne Town Square — steps away
• Johnson, Middleton T., Colonel; Cleburne, Patrick R., General — steps away
• Site of Old Picnic Grounds — 0.2 mi