Twin Chimneys

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna give it to you straight with a little wind at its back. About a hundred yards north of where you're sitting right now, there are two chimneys rising out of the Garza County landscape. Not the chimneys of a house, mind you.

Natural formations. Rock columns standing up against the sky like they've been waiting for somebody to notice them. And notice them people did.

Surveyors in the nineteenth century used these Twin Chimneys as a landmark, sighting from Duffy's Peak, located ten miles to the northeast. Out here on the Llano Estacado, where the land can fool your eyes and the horizon just keeps going, a man with a transit needed something to fix on. These chimneys were that something.

Now the earliest recorded surveyor of this area was a man named Jasper Hays, and during 1877 and 1878 he was out here charting the Llano Ranch. He used these peaks, worked from them, and in addition established lines from which section surveys were made. Good foundational work.

The kind that holds. That Llano Ranch, the very ground Hays was charting, was later bought by C. W.

Post. The cereal king. Yes, that C.

W. Post. Then in 1906, a civil engineer named A.

L. Marhoff came along, picked up Jasper Hays's original field notes and book, and surveyed the land Post had purchased. That survey included the section on which the town of Post was founded, in 1907.

So those two rock chimneys standing out there, they weren't just scenery. They were the fixed point that helped draw the lines that built this corner of Texas.

What the marker says

(100 Yards North) Used as a landmark in the 19th century by surveyors sighting from Duffy's Peak, located ten miles northeast. Jasper Hays, earliest recorded surveyor of this area, used the peaks during 1877-78 for charting the Llano Ranch, later bought by C. W. Post, the cereal king. Hays established, in addition, lines from which section surveys were made. Civil engineer A. L. Marhoff, using the original field notes and book of Hays, surveyed the land bought by Post, 1906. This included the section on which the town of Post was founded, 1907, as well as other property. 1970