Round Timber Community

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Round Timber Community, Baylor County. Now, the name itself comes from round clumps of oaks, and that right there ought to set the scene for you.

This is open country, and a stand of round oaks is something you notice. C. C.

Mills, known to folks as Lum, pioneered the site back in 1863. Got out there first. That takes something.

But the settlement didn't hold. It was abandoned to the Indians, and the land went quiet again. For over a decade, those oaks stood and the wind did what it pleased.

Then 1874 came around, and a handful of determined souls reopened the place. T. K.

Hamby, C. C. and W. B.

Mills, John W. Stevens, and Tom Whitworth. That's the moment Round Timber became the first permanent settlement in Baylor County.

First permanent. Meaning everything before it had been a rehearsal. By 1879, the community had found its rhythm.

A post office opened that year, with A. C. Burnham serving as postmaster.

A school went up that same year, and the first teacher to walk through its door was Eliza Mitchell. The Methodists built their church in 1879 as well. That was a busy year for Round Timber.

Come the 1880s, the town had filled out proper. Stores, a barber shop, a blacksmith shop. The kind of bones that say a place intends to stay.

The Methodist church stood for decades, then in 1933 it was sold to the Baptists. Things change hands. That's how communities breathe.

And then there's the burial ground. It dates from 1870, which means people were being laid to rest at Round Timber before the permanent settlement was even established. Think on that a moment.

In 1962, J. Hop Parker deeded that ground to the cemetery association, making sure the people buried there would be looked after. Round Timber may not be on every map you've seen, but it put down roots in hard country, and some of those roots run all the way down to 1870.

That's not nothing. That's everything.

What the marker says

Named for round clumps of oaks. Pioneered by C. C. (Lum) Mills, 1863, but soon abandoned to Indians, site became the first permanent settlement in Baylor County when reopened in 1874 by T. K. Hamby, C. C. and W. B. Mills, John W. Stevens and Tom Whitworth. Post Office opened in 1879 with A. C. Burnham as postmaster. In school built in 1879, first teacher was Eliza Mitchell. Town had stores, barber and blacksmith shops, 1880s. The church was built by Methodists, 1879, sold to Baptists, 1933. The burial ground, dating from 1870, was deeded 1962 by J. Hop Parker to the cemetery association. Incise on back: Marker sponsored by Harry and Helen Portwood. 1972.