Bob Stone Camp

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll give it to you straight. Back in 1880, out in Montague County, a group of Confederate veterans of the Civil War started gathering together. They called themselves the Bob Stone Camp, named in honor of a deceased colonel by the name of Bob Stone.

Now, these were men who had lived through something most folks couldn't imagine, and every summer they came together, reunions that brought in veterans and their families from across the area. Just a way to sit with the people who understood. By 1893, the Bob Stone Camp had grown enough in standing to join the United Confederate Veterans, a national association, tying this little corner of north Texas to something much larger.

Then in 1899, the camp found a permanent home. Nocona became that home, on a piece of land west of town donated by a man named D.C. Jordan.

And those summer programs that followed were something to behold. Presentations, events, Confederate veterans and Union veterans both, families, friends, people coming in from north Texas and Oklahoma. Old adversaries sitting under the same summer sky.

The Bob Stone Camp kept on like that, year after year, reunion after reunion, for decades. It stayed active all the way until the last of the local Civil War veterans were gone, sometime in the 1940s. The camp didn't close.

It just ran out of the men it was built to hold.

What the marker says

In 1880, the Bob Stone Camp began in Montague County as a means for Confederate veterans of the Civil War to gather. Named in honor of deceased Col. Bob Stone, the camp hosted annual summer reunions for veterans and their families in the area. By 1893, the Bob Stone Camp joined the United Confederate Veterans (UCV), a national association. In 1899, Nocona became the permanent home of the Bob Stone Camp, on land west of town donated by D.C. Jordan. Summer programs featured presentations and events attended by Confederate and Union veterans, families and friends from north Texas and Oklahoma. The Bob Stone Camp was active until the last local Civil War veterans died in the 1940s. (2019)