William Monroe Patton

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. William Monroe Patton. Born 1855, died 1915.

Now that's a name that still sits on the landscape of Crockett, Texas, if you know where to look. The story starts in Tadmor, where William and his brother James H. Patton ran a dry goods store together.

Two brothers, one business, and by all accounts a going concern. But then James died, and that changed things. In 1899, William Monroe Patton packed up and moved to Crockett.

Grief has a way of setting a man in motion, and William didn't stop moving once he got there. He went straight to the southwest corner of the public square and purchased property. Then he built.

A brick structure, first, for his general merchandise business. Solid, permanent, the kind of thing that says a man intends to stay. And stay he did.

Because William didn't stop at one building. He constructed six one-story buildings on that corner, and before long people were calling the whole stretch Patton Block. Six buildings.

His name on a whole block. Not bad for a man who came to town carrying loss. Along the way, William married Flora Elizabeth Gause, born 1869, and she would outlast him by a considerable stretch, living all the way to 1957.

Together they had four children. William Monroe Patton built more than brick and mortar on that Crockett square. He built something that kept his name alive long after 1915.

That corner still knows who showed up.

What the marker says

(1855-1915) William Monroe Patton moved to Crockett from Tadmor in 1899 after the death of his brother James H. Patton, with whom he owned a dry goods store. William purchased property on the southwest corner of the public square in Crockett and built a brick structure for his general merchandise business. He constructed six one-story buildings on what became known as Patton Block. William married Flora Elizabeth Gause (1869-1957) and had four children. Recorded - 1996