DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and Thrifty, Texas has got a story worth every word. Out here in Brown County, along Jim Ned Creek, there's a place called Thrifty. And if you're wonderin' whether the name fits the story — well, hold on.
It all starts in 1857, when the U.S. Army relocated Camp Colorado, a frontier defense post, to the banks of Jim Ned Creek. Where a military post goes, settlers tend to follow, and sure enough, the first family to put down permanent roots in that valley was the Mullins family — Charles Mullins, with three sons and one daughter, all of them spreading out along Jim Ned Creek, building ranches and homes and staking a claim on this stretch of Texas.
Now, things were going along well enough until February of 1861, when Texas voters elected to secede from the Union. Federal troops were withdrawn from the area, and just like that, those settlers were on their own. No cavalry patrol riding the ridgeline.
No garrison down the road. Whatever dangers frontier life had in store, the folks along Jim Ned Creek were going to face them without a blue coat in sight. But communities have a stubborn way of persisting.
Thrifty saw its greatest development in the years following the Civil War and Reconstruction. A post office was established — first under the name Jim Ned, and later renamed Thrifty. By the time the place hit its stride, it had a hotel, a saloon, a sawmill, a sorghum press, a cotton gin, a blacksmith shop, and physicians' offices.
Not bad for a creek-bottom settlement that had once been left to fend for itself. In 1881, John Charles Mullins — one of those Mullins sons who'd grown up in that valley — donated four acres of land for school and church purposes. The mercantile store, operated by Dr.
G. W. Allen and John Charles Mullins together, pulled in farmers and ranchers from all across the region.
Thrifty wasn't just surviving. It was the kind of place people rode a good distance to reach. And then came 1886.
The railroad bypassed Thrifty. Just... went around it. And if that weren't enough, a severe drought had already been grinding away at the land since 1885, and it wouldn't let go until 1888.
Three years of dry skies and a railroad line pointing somewhere else. That combination triggered an exodus — residents leaving, seeking viable employment wherever they could find it. Just like that, Thrifty's life as a vital trade center diminished.
The marker calls it a lesson in the development of the Texas frontier. And maybe that's exactly right. Thrifty grew up fast, built something real, survived hard times — and then got handed two blows it couldn't absorb at once.
The name Thrifty stuck long after the boom faded, which is either ironic or fitting, depending on how you look at a place that made the most of what it had, for as long as it could.
What the marker says
Once a thriving agricultural area and regional trade center, the community of Thrifty was established after the U. S. Army relocated Camp Colorado, a frontier defense post, along nearby Jim Ned Creek in 1857. The first family to settle permanently in the area was that of Charles Mullins, whose three sons and one daughter and their families established ranches and homes in the Jim Ned Creek valley. Once federal troops were withdrawn from the area after Texas voters elected to secede from the Union in February 1861, settlers were on their own to provide for their defense, encountering many of the dangers of frontier life. Thrifty saw its greatest development in the period following the Civil War and Reconstruction, when a post office was established (first under the name Jim Ned, later named Thrifty). John Charles Mullins donated four acres of land for school and church purposes in 1881. At one time, Thrifty had a hotel, saloon, sawmill, sorghum press, cotton gin, blacksmith shop and physicians' offices. The mercantile store, operated by Dr. G. W. Allen and John Charles Mullins, served as a regional trading center for farmers and ranchers in the area. In 1886, the railroad bypassed Thrifty, and its life as a vital trade center diminished. This event, coupled with a severe drought between 1885 and 1888, triggered an exodus from the community, as residents sought viable employment elsewhere. The story of Thrifty remains as a lesson in the development of the Texas frontier and a part of Brown County's history. (2001)