Tennyson

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. Way out in Coke County, there's a little place called Tennyson, and its story starts long before anyone thought to give it a name. Indians roamed this area for centuries.

Centuries. Let that settle in. The land out here has seen more history than most folks ever stop to think about.

Then came the open-range cattlemen in the late 1870s, and they set about taming what the land would allow. By the 1880s, permanent settlement had taken hold. People were putting down roots.

Now, a settlement needs a post office like a campfire needs wood, and in 1894 that post office arrived. Somebody had to name it, and whoever did had a touch of the poetic about them, because they named it for the British poet Alfred Tennyson. The first postmaster was Mrs.

Sarah E. Kiser, and by 1970, seven people total had held that office. Seven keepers of the mail, spanning decades of letters and news and whatever hope people trusted to the post.

The area gathered schools over the years, several of them, though by the time this marker was written, all of those schools had closed. Communities shift. That's just the nature of things.

But here's what I want you to notice. Near Tennyson stands Mt. Margaret, rising three hundred and thirty-five feet, and that hill has its own long memory.

It was once a locale of Indian activities, connecting it all the way back to those centuries before the cattlemen ever arrived. And today, Mt. Margaret is the site of two traditions the community still holds onto.

Every spring, Easter sunrise religious services are held there. And every year, on the Saturday before Labor Day, people come back for the annual community homecoming. A hill that watched over centuries of human life is still, in its quiet way, calling people home.

What the marker says

In area roamed by Indians for centuries. Tamed by open-range cattlemen in the late 1870's. Permanent settlement began in 1880's. A post office, named for British poet Alfred Tennyson, was established in 1894 with Mrs. Sarah E. Kiser as the first postmaster. Seven persons have held that office to date (1970). Over years, area has had several schools, but all are now closed. Near Mt. Margaret (height 335 feet), once locale of Indian activities, is now site of annual community homecoming (the Saturday before Labor Day) and Easter sunrise religious services each spring. (1971)