Site of Old Town of Senterfitt

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Now, out here in Lampasas County, there's a story worth slowing down for. The story of a town that rose up, put down roots, and then watched the ground shift right out from under it.

The town of Senterfitt. Named, the marker makes clear, for one Reuben S. Senterfitt, the Cattle King of this area back in the 1850s.

Cattle King. Not a title handed out lightly in Texas, and not a title you forget. This was a man with enough land and livestock and standing that when a town needed a name, well, there was really only one candidate.

Reuben S. Senterfitt laid out the townsite himself. And he didn't just claim it, he gave back to it.

Donated land for a cemetery and a school. The kind of man who's thinking about the next generation while he's still busy with this one. The post office came in 1877, established at an early stage stand, which tells you something right there.

This wasn't a flash-in-the-pan settlement. Stage lines ran through here. Mail moved through here.

People stopped, and a lot of them stayed. And what those people built together was something real. Senterfitt served a large area of central Texas, producing wool, hides, cotton, and pecans.

The whole honest economy of the land, gathered up and sent out into the world. At its peak, four hundred people called this place home. Four hundred souls in a town with a post office, a school, a cemetery, and all the commerce a working stretch of central Texas could ask for.

Then came the railroad. Or rather, then came the removal of the railroad, around 1890. That's the line on the marker, quiet and plain.

The removal of the railroad. You don't need me to dramatize that. A town built around commerce and connection loses its connection, and the math does the rest.

Today the town is a site. A marker stands where four hundred people once lived their lives, carrying on the name of the Cattle King who put this place on the map. Reuben S.

Senterfitt. The town was his. The name still is.

What the marker says

The town was named for Reuben S. Senterfitt, the Cattle King in this area in 1850s. The post office was established at an early stage stand in 1877. Mr. Senterfitt laid out the townsite and donated land for a cemetery and a school. The town served a large area of central Texas by producing many supplies such as wool, hides, cotton, and pecans. Senterfitt had a population of 400 people before removal of the railroad around 1890.