Tee Pee City

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and it's quite a tale for a place most maps forgot entirely. Way out on the Texas plains, there was once a spot called Tee Pee City. Now, that name alone ought to stop you in your tracks.

This was a camp, a camp of early buffalo hunters, and for a stretch of years running from 1875 to 1880, it held a distinction that sounds almost like a dare: it was the only settlement west of Henrietta, north of Fort Griffin, and south of Fort Elliott, the place now called Mobeetie. You want to picture lonely? Draw a triangle between those three points and put one dot inside it.

That dot was Tee Pee City. Everything else was just grass and sky and buffalo as far as a man could see. And the buffalo hunters, they saw plenty of both.

This was their headquarters, their gathering place, their version of civilization out there on the edge of everything. Then the Texas Rangers came calling. At intervals between 1879 and 1881, Tee Pee City served as headquarters for the Rangers operating under Captain G.W.

Arrington. Think on that a moment; in a territory that vast and that raw, this little camp was the anchor. The place where order, such as it was, had an address.

But even anchors get pulled up eventually. By about 1886, Tee Pee City was abandoned. The hunters had moved on, the Rangers had moved on, and the plains reclaimed most of what had been built there.

Still, before the quiet settled in for good, this place made history of a gentler kind. In 1882, a child named Nora Cooper was born right here at Tee Pee City, the first white child born in all of Motley County. One life beginning just as a whole little world was winding down.

And somewhere near this site, a pioneer merchant named S.N. Armstrong was laid to rest, buried close to the ground he'd once done business on. Tee Pee City blinked into existence, served its purpose on the wild edge of Texas, and faded out.

But it was real, and the marker put up by the State of Texas in 1936 makes sure we don't entirely forget it.

What the marker says

Camp of early buffalo hunters. Only settlement west of Henrietta, north of Fort Griffin and south of Fort Elliott (now Mobeetie) 1875-1880. Headquarters of Texas Rangers under Captain G.W. Arrington at intervals, 1879-1881. Abandoned about 1886. First white child born in Motley county was Nora Cooper born here in 1882. S.N. Armstrong, pioneer merchant, buried near this site. Erected by the State of Texas 1936