Telegraph Store and Post Office

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll let the words do the work. Somewhere in Kimble County, tucked along the road toward points south, there's a little place called Telegraph, and the name goes back further than the store itself. Way back in the mid-19th century, folks were cutting trees right out of a nearby canyon, trimming them down into telegraph poles.

That canyon gave the whole settlement its name, and the name stuck like sap on a boot heel. Then, somewhere between 1890 and 1900, somebody went ahead and built a store and a post office to go along with it. Now the first commissioned postmistress of that post office was a woman named Ruth Holmes, and she took the job in 1900.

Think about what it meant to hold that post in a place like Kimble County at the turn of the century: you were the keeper of connections, the one making sure the letters got where they were going. The Telegraph Store and Post Office became a stopover for vacationers working their way along the south Llano River, and for travelers heading on down to points south. People passed through, rested, picked up what they needed, and moved on; and they kept on doing it for a century.

Here's a little detail that lands different when you really sit with it: the Telegraph Post Office was the official Kimble County address of Texas Governor Coke R. Stevenson. The governor of the whole state of Texas called this modest little store his address.

And through all of it (the poles, the postmistress, the governor, the generations of river travelers), the site never lost what the marker calls its rustic charm. A century of community. Right there at the canyon where they once cut the trees.

What the marker says

This Kimble County landmark was named for a nearby canyon from which trees were cut for telegraph poles in the Mid-19th century. The store and post office were built about 1890-1900. The first commissioned postmistress was Ruth Holmes in 1900. For many years this has been the stopover place for vacationers along nearby south Llano River and travelers enroute to points south. The telegraph post office was the Kimble County address of Texas Governor Coke R. Stevenson. The site retains the rustic charm of its early years, and has served the community for a century.