Anderson County Poor Farm

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm passing it along to you. Anderson County, Texas, and a story about what a community does when its own people fall on hard times. Pull up a little closer to the fire for this one.

The county records show some attempts to care for the poor going all the way back to the 1860s. Attempts. That word does a lot of work.

But attempts alone don't feed anybody, and it wasn't until 1884 that Anderson County actually purchased property for a poor farm. Something to build on. Something real.

And build they did. Various buildings went up over time. Housing for the residents who lived there, quarters for a caretaker, storage barns, a cotton gin, a canning operation.

This wasn't charity handed out from a distance. This was a working farm, a full operation, meant to sustain itself and the people on it. Now, there's a harder detail woven into this place, and it deserves to be said plainly.

A jail building was also in use on the property, for convict laborers who worked the farm and the county roads. That's the world this farm existed in, and that's what the record shows. You walk that land today, and the ruins of several wells are still scattered across the property.

Silent reminders of all the daily labor, all the water drawn, all the years this place was alive with the business of survival. And near the southern edge of the original farm site, there is a cemetery. Somewhere between seventy-five and a hundred graves.

Most of them, you can be sure, are people whose names didn't make it into anybody's history books. Just folks who came to the end of the road and were laid to rest on the same ground where they'd lived and worked. Anderson County started trying to care for its poor in the 1860s, and this is where that long effort finally put down roots.

Some stories end with a monument. This one ends with a cemetery, and that tells you just about everything.

What the marker says

Although county records show some attempts to care for the poor as early as the 1860s, property for a poor farm was not purchased until 1884. Various buildings were erected, including housing for residents and a caretaker, storage barns, a cotton gin, and a canning operation. A jail building was also in use for convict laborers who worked on the farm and on county roads. The ruins of several wells can still be seen throughout the property. A cemetery containing some 75-100 graves is located near the southern edge of the original farm site. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836 - 1986