Town of Antelope

Antelope was a post-office town before it was a plat. The post office opened in 1858 and B. F. Spear was postmaster the next year, long before Walter Jones surveyed the six blocks around the square in 1875. His papers went unfiled until 1889. By 1890 some 300 people had a hotel, several general stores, Methodist and Baptist churches, a school and daily stages to Henrietta and Graham for a two-dollar fare. Drummers made it a popular overnight stop. The Mullins Brothers general store, opened in 1883, was still in business in the 1940s.

What the plaque says

Town of Antelope Named for springs where herds of antelope watered and Kiowa Indians had a campsite. In 1875, Walter S. Jones platted townsite on Henrietta-Graham mail route. By 1887, place had 400 people, a general store, post office, a school, doctors, hotel, and spa built around its mineral wells. Town was overnight stop and supply point for cattle trails leading north. The G. R. Christian Camp No. 703, United Confederate Veterans, active 1895-1941, served as city's park association. Economy is based on ranch and oil income; area is known for its churches and hospitality. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Royal Theater — 18 mi
  Archer City's movie house, burned in 1965, given a false front for The Last Picture Show and brought back by the town in the 1990s as a working stage on Main Street.
• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 20 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 22 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.
• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 26 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.

More markers nearby

• The Stone Houses — 5.1 mi
• Bridwell Park — 5.2 mi
• Markley Cemetery Decoration Day — 6.8 mi
• Shannon Cemetery — 7.1 mi