DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Coryell County — carved out of Bell County, created on February 4, 1854, and organized exactly one month later on March 4, 1854. Fast work, friends.
But the name on that county didn't come easy, and the man it honors paid about as high a price as a man can pay. James Coryell. Born in Tennessee in 1796.
Now, if you're the kind of person drawn to silver mines and wild country and long-shot expeditions into contested territory, well — James Coryell was your kind of person. In 1831, he rode with the Bowie Expedition to the old San Saba Silver Mines. The Bowie Expedition.
You already know that name carries a certain weight. And Coryell carried it right out into that hard, uncertain country. He became a Texas Ranger.
A man who put himself between the frontier and whatever the frontier threw back. And the frontier threw plenty. On May 27, 1837, near Fort Milam, James Coryell was killed by Indians.
Just like that, the story ends for him — out there in the Texas brush, not far from the very kind of ground he'd spent his life riding across. When the county was formed in 1854, the first county seat was Fort Gates. It didn't stay that way.
Gatesville took over, and Gatesville holds that seat to this day. A county named for a Ranger who never lived to see it. That tends to stick with you on a long stretch of Texas road.
What the marker says
Formed from Bell County; created February 4, 1854--Organized March 4, 1854. Named in Honor of James Coryell, born in Tennesse in 1796; a member of the Bowie Expedition to the old San Saba Silver Mines in 1831; a Texas Ranger; killed by Indians near Fort Milam May 27, 1837. County seat Fort Gates 1854; Gatesville since.