Buffalo Gap Historic Village

Buffalo Gap was Taylor County's first seat of government, and its stone courthouse and jail were finished in 1880. Three years later the county seat went to Abilene, the new town on the Texas and Pacific line, and Buffalo Gap was left with a building it no longer needed. The county gave it up in 1886, and at some point it became a private house.

The village grew from there, one collector at a time. In 1956 Ernie Wilson bought the old courthouse to show his collection of Old West artifacts as the Ernie Wilson Museum of the Old West, and he moved in a log cabin, the Knight-Sayles Cabin, and the Marshal Tom Hill House, the first house in Abilene built of lumber. In 1977 Dr. R. Lee Rode and his wife Ann bought the property, renamed it Buffalo Gap Historic Village and spent two decades bringing in buildings from West Texas towns; by 1999 there were nearly twenty structures and more than 9,000 artifacts. The McWhiney History Education Group ran it next, and in 2017 it passed to Taylor County, with a citizens' board in charge.

The visit is self-guided with a map and signs: the courthouse and jail, a doctor's office, barbershop, depot, bank, post office, print shop, homes and a chapel. Some doorways are narrow and one building has steep stairs. The Scarecrow Festival each fall brings free admission.