DUANE
Duane's take
Here's my telling of what the official marker has to say about the site of the town of Cummins, out in Sterling County. Now, some towns are born to last. And some towns are born to fight.
The settlement of Cummins was very much the second kind — though it started peaceful enough, as most things do. Around 1890, a man named Robert Benjamin Cummins — born in 1848, a Mississippi native — set himself up at this very site with a saddle and harness shop. He was the earliest permanent settler here, and the settlement that grew up around him took his name.
A post office followed the next year. And right around that same time, about a mile and nine-tenths to the east, another little town called Sterling City was putting down its own roots. For a while, they were just neighbors.
But then the Texas Legislature went and created Sterling County out of Tom Green County on March 4, 1891 — and neighbors became rivals. Because now there was a prize worth fighting over: the county seat. What followed was, by all accounts, an intense publicity campaign.
And when Texas towns went to war with words, they reached for their newspaper editors the way other men reached for rifles. Cummins had W. L.
Thurman of the North Concho News. Sterling City had S. R.
Ezzell of the Sterling Courier. Those two men sharpened their pens and went at it. Then came May 20, 1891 — Election Day.
And Cummins, it appeared, had won. Appeared being the operative word. Because several voting boxes were dismissed for technical reasons, and when the dust settled, there was no winner at all.
A dead tie. So they did it again. July 7, 1891.
Second election. And this time, Sterling City came out ahead — by thirteen votes. Thirteen.
County seat: Sterling City. And just like that, Cummins started to empty out. By the end of 1891, most of its businesses and residents had picked up and moved east to Sterling City.
The school, the saloon, the meat market, the mercantile, the blacksmith shop, the grocery stores — all of it, gone. Nothing remains of the early townsite today. Thirteen votes.
That's the margin between a town that endured and a town that vanished. Robert Benjamin Cummins built something real out here — and the only monument left to it is the marker you're standing near and a story worth knowing.
What the marker says
The pioneer settlement of Cummins developed at this site about 1890 around the saddle and harness shop of the earliest permanent settler, Mississippi native Robert Benjamin Cummins (b. 1848). A post office the following year the nearby town of Sterling City (1.9 miles east) was founded. The two towns became rivals for the designation of county seat when the Texas Legislature created Sterling County from Tom Green County on March 4, 1891. An intense publicity campaign developed, aided by the writings of the respective town newspaper editors: W. L. Thurman of the Cummins paper, the "North Concho News", and S. R. Ezzell of the "Sterling Courier". An election, conducted May 20, 1891, appeared to be a victory for Cummins until several voting boxes were dismissed for technical reasons, resulting in a tie. A second election on July 7 gave Sterling City a 13-vote margin and it was named the county seat. Most Cummins businesses and residents had moved to Sterling City by the end of 1891. Nothing remains of the early townsite, which once included a school, saloon, meat market, mercantile, blacksmith shop, and grocery stores.