Site of the Town of Runnels

The Handbook of Texas says the county had 980 people and no towns when it organized in February 1880, and that the commissioners placed Runnels City on Elm Creek, five miles north of the Colorado, as the Texas and Pacific line through Abilene, twenty-five miles away, promised more settlers. Runnels City, also called Old Runnels, had 250 people in 1882. The Santa Fe bypassed it in 1886, and its people moved to Ballinger. By 1947 a rock hut and a ruined two-story rock building were all that remained.

What the plaque says

First county seat of Runnels County. Established in 1880 as Runnels City. Declined after removal of the county seat to Ballinger in 1888.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 4.6 mi
  A 1909 limestone library with an Ionic portico in a railroad town the Santa Fe created in 1886, one of the few Texas Carnegie libraries still working in its original building.
• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 10 mi
  A free museum in a Winters optometrist's office, a 1909 railroad hotel and a 1927 implement dealership, with Rogers Hornsby's hometown memorabilia and a 1912 horse-drawn cotton picker.
• Fort Chadbourne — 24 mi
  An 1852 infantry post and Butterfield stage station on a Coke County ranch, its fallen stone buildings rebuilt since 1999 by the descendant of the family that has ranched the land since 1877.

More markers nearby

• Runnels County — 4.7 mi
• Ballinger — 4.7 mi
• Charles H. Noyes — 4.7 mi
• Winters — 11 mi