Old Townsite of Content

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. There's a little town out in Runnels County that started with just about the best possible name a place could carry. Content.

Named, the marker says, because of the contentment of this valley. Now you have to appreciate that. Most Texas towns got their names from a family, a creek, a general, or a fight.

This one got named for a feeling. Dan W. Hale founded it in 1881, and maybe he looked out across that valley and decided the name said everything worth saying.

Then came 1882, and with it a man named Michael C. Bright. Bright settled there, served as an early county commissioner, and ran a general store right at that site.

He and his family, the marker makes a point of saying, worked for the progress of the area. That's the kind of detail that gets carved into stone for a reason. These were people who showed up and stayed invested.

Now, here's where the story takes a turn, as stories in this part of Texas have a habit of doing. At some point, Content got renamed Tokeen. The valley's contentment, apparently, did not extend to keeping the name.

And then came 1909, when the railroad came through and went right around the town. Bypassed. Not stopped at, not slowed down for.

Just bypassed. You know what a railroad bypass meant to a small Texas town in 1909. It meant the future was headed somewhere else.

The post office held on for a while, the way stubborn things do, but by 1916 it was discontinued too. The marker went up in 1966. Tokeen, formerly Content, is an old townsite now.

But that valley still sits there in Runnels County, and whatever the railroad thought about it, somebody back in 1881 found it worth naming for the feeling it gave them.

What the marker says

Named because of contentment of this valley. Founded 1881 by Dan W. Hale. Michael C. Bright, 1882 settler, early county commissioner, had a general store at this site. Family worked for progress of the area. Renamed "Tokeen," town bypassed by railroad in 1909. Post office was discontinued in 1916. (1966)