In the early 1850s farmers digging a well found a wall of stone that crossed the county, and the town was named for it. The museum's timeline dates the discovery to 1852 and credits Benjamin Boydstun, Terry Utley Wade and William Clay Stevenson, while recording a 1922 newspaper claim of a different first finder.
Geologists have not agreed with the builders' story. Robert T. Hill classed the walls as clastic sand dikes in 1901. Sidney Paige wrote in Science in 1909 that they were not a wall but disconnected sandstone dikes trending in many directions, and Brooks Ellwood concluded in 1988 that man did not build it. The timeline also records the other side: in 1925 the archeologist Count Byron de Prorok judged the walls the work of a prehistoric race, and a 1996 architect's study said evidence of a structure built by people was mounting. The county's own history page says scientists have found the formation natural while folk tales credit prehistoric natives.
The museum stands in Harry Myers Park with the Manson-LaMoreaux-Hartman House, a dogtrot home once lived in by Dr. Jessie Castle LaMoreaux, one of the first women dentists in Texas, the 1909 Bailey House and a tenant cabin. A segment of the wall, rebuilt here, can be seen on the grounds. The walls still in the ground are on private property, buried and closed to the public. Admission is free.
The closest stops worth working into your route
Roadside plaques and monuments within a short detour