Townsite of Old Farmer

Before it honored William H. Farmer, the community was called Brush or Brushy. The Handbook of Texas dates its post office, opened in Farmer's store, to August 7, 1878. John Casey, a former ferry operator, opened a second store, and a large Methodist church was built in 1889. By 1892 Farmer had 125 residents and rivaled Graham, with a hotel, a drugstore and a town band. When the Gulf, Texas and Western bypassed it to the south in the early 1900s, the town declined quickly; its post office moved to Jean on January 15, 1921.

What the plaque says

Named for a missionary, Rev. William H. Farmer, who camped here 1877. Later he had a general store; first postmaster, 1878. Town once had a school, 2 churches, a newspaper, 3 doctors, 17 businesses, a Justice of the Peace Court. The old Farmer ranch house still stands. (1966)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 17 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.
• Fort Belknap — 17 mi
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.
• 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 — 25 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.

More markers nearby

• Hawkins Chapel — 4.0 mi
• Site of Loving Ranch House — 9.7 mi
• Community of Jermyn — 11 mi
• Bridwell Park — 11 mi