DUANE
Duane's take
Here's the story as the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out here on the Llano Estacado, where the wind doesn't ask permission and the horizon goes on forever, a colony of English Quakers once planted something unlikely — a town. The year was 1879.
Their leader was a man named Isaac Paris Cox, and Cox did what a leader does: he went out and purchased land. Not a little parcel, not a modest homestead. Eighty-two sections of it.
That's a serious commitment to a serious dream. The town they built, they first named Marietta — in honor of Mary Cox, wife of the leader. A gentleness in that, naming a place on the raw Texas frontier after a woman.
For a time, Marietta stood. Then in 1886, when Crosby County was organized, the town was renamed Estacado. New county, new name, same stubborn patch of ground.
But here's the thing about dreams planted in hard soil. By 1893, the colony had disintegrated. That word — disintegrated — does a lot of quiet work.
It doesn't say what pulled it apart; it just says it came undone. And then, in 1895, what remained moved. Not next door, not to Lubbock.
To Galveston County — clear across Texas, as far from the Llano as you can get and still be in the same state. This marker was erected by the State of Texas in 1936, standing out here where Estacado once stood, marking a place that tried, and moved on.
What the marker says
A town founded in 1879 by a colony of English Quakers under the leadership of Isaac Paris Cox who purchased for them 82 sections of land. The town, first named Marietta in honor of Mary Cox, wife of the leader, was renamed Estacado in 1886 when Crosby County was organized. By 1893 the colony had disintegrated. Moved in 1895 to Galveston County. Erected by the State of Texas 1936