DUANE
Duane's take
The way this story comes down to us is straight off the official marker for the Site of Pickettville, right here in Runnels County, and I'm gonna do my best to do it justice. Now, before there was much of anything in Runnels County — before the cattle drives, before the trail herds, before all of it — a handful of frontiersmen carved something out of raw Texas ground in 1862. They built picket houses and corrals, the kind of rough-hewn structures that defined life on the edge of everything, and that settlement became the first civilian settlement in all of Runnels County.
The people who staked their lives on that ground read like a frontier census unto themselves. Mr. and Mrs. John W.
Guest came with their three sons. Henry and R. K.
Wylie rode in with their cowboys and a Negro servant. Mrs. Felicia Gordon brought five sons — five — which tells you something right there about the kind of woman she was.
And in that same year of 1862, the family of a man they called "Rich" Coffey moved in as well. Now, here's where the story takes a turn that every soul on the Texas frontier knew was coming. The Civil War years — 1861 to 1865 — brought Indian hostilities down on this stretch of country, and these ranchers did what people do when the land turns dangerous: they banded together.
That settlement held. But in 1866, they left. Took their cattle and headed out for open range.
Just like that, the people were gone. What stayed behind were those picket corrals. And those old corrals weren't done working yet.
They went on to pen the trail herds of John Hittson, John and Joseph Henderson, and others whose cattle moved across this land long after the founders had ridden on. Pickettville didn't last — but those corrals kept doing the work, quietly, for drives that wrote their own chapter in Texas history. Not a bad legacy for a place most maps never bothered to show.
What the marker says
First civilian settlement in Runnels County. Founded 1862 by frontiersmen whose picket houses and corrals gave place its name. Original settlers included Mr. and Mrs. John W. Guest and three sons; Henry and R. K. Wylie, their cowboys and Negro servant; Mrs. Felicia Gordon and five sons. In 1862, "Rich" Coffey's family also moved here. Indian hostilities of Civil War years (1861-65) caused these ranchers to band together for protection. In 1866, they left with cattle for open range. Their picket corrals later penned the trail herds of John Hittson, John and Joseph Henderson, and others.