Publications Education Events Southwestern Historical Quarterly The Handbook of Texas Online Texas State Historical Association - Home About Us News Site Search Contact Us Giving Opportunities Links FAQ Join the Texas State Historical Association
skip to content
TSHA Online Home
Handbook of 
 Texas Online



Facebook


Home Buying Guide
Tips, News, Deals
Mortgage Information,
Blogs and More

Denton Live Music
Listings, Venues, Maps
Updated Daily
DentonLiveMusic.com


format this article to print

FORT CHADBOURNE, TEXAS. The Fort Chadbourne community is on a local road and the Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe line, about eight miles north of Bronte and four miles southwest of old Fort Chadbourne in northeastern Coke County. A small settlement grew up in the area during the 1850s, and a post office operated there from January 1859 to November 1866. After the Civil War,qv settlers first gathered around the fort but soon established a new town some four miles to the southwest. The Fort Chadbourne post office was reinstated in October 1879. In 1892 the town reported the post office, a general store, and twenty-five citizens. The community was moved about one mile east to a new townsite donated by W. D. McDonald when the Kansas City, Mexico and Orient built through the county about 1910. Soon the settlement had a newspaper, a hotel, a store, a bank, a gin, a school, and two churches; by 1917 it reported a population of sixty-five. By the 1940s, however, only two businesses and a population of fifty were reported. Eventually the school was consolidated with that of Bronte, and the post office closed for good in 1942. Fort Chadbourne had a population of fifty during the 1950s and 1960s; by the 1980s county maps showed only a railroad station at the site, with a cemetery nearby.

BIBLIOGRAPHY: M. L. Crimmins, "Experiences of an Army Surgeon at Fort Chadbourne," West Texas Historical Association Year Book 15 (1939). John Leeds Kerr and Frank Donovan, Destination Topolobampo: The Kansas City, Mexico & Orient Railway (San Marino, California: Golden West, 1968). Jewell G. Pritchett, From the Top of Old Hayrick: A Narrative History of Coke County (Abilene, Texas: Pritchett, 1980).

Charles G. Davis

 

Support the Handbook of Texas by donating today!
To join the TSHA, visit our membership information page.





Copyright © Texas State Historical Association
Terms of Use  Comment/Contact  Policy Agreement  Last Updated: January 17, 2008
Published by the Texas State Historical Association
and distributed in partnership with the University of North Texas.