DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I wouldn't change a word. Four miles east off Cowan Road in Archer County, there's a place where water rises right up out of the earth — and in a dry, windy stretch of Texas, that is no small thing. The natural springs that flow near this site showed up on early maps under the name Cimmaron Springs.
That name was there from the start, staked right onto the land the way only old maps can do. Then came the 1890s, and with them a wave of European immigrants settling into this corner of Archer County. Now, those folks were unfamiliar with the word cimmaron, so they did what settlers do — they called it what made sense to them.
Persimmon Springs. And just like that, one place carried two names. Before those settlers ever arrived, before those maps were ever drawn, the springs were already doing what springs do — drawing people in.
Native Americans knew this water. Military parties found their way here. And as routes of travel and settlement took shape across Archer County, this water source was right there as a factor in where people went and where they stayed.
Think about that: a garden spot, the marker calls it, sitting in the middle of dry, windy country. In a landscape that could wear a person down to nothing, here was water, steady and reliable, rising out of the ground like a promise. It has been a well-known landmark since the earliest days of occupation in Archer County.
Two names, one spring, and a whole lot of history drinking from the same source.
What the marker says
(Four miles east off Cowan Road) The natural springs that flow near this site first appeared on early maps of the area as Cimmaron Springs. European immigrants who settled here in the early 1890s were unfamiliar with the word cimmaron and called it Persimmon Springs. The water source served early Native Americans, settlers and military parties and was a factor in settlement patterns and immigration routes. A garden spot in the midst of a dry, windy area, Cimmaron (Persimmon) Springs has been a well-known landmark since the earliest days of occupation in Archer County. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986