Name: Anson, Texas
Address: Anson, TX

Anson, TX RoadyGoat

Anson. It's a place that sticks with you, a quiet sort of town, even with the wind whistling through the mesquite trees. You can stand on the edge of town, feel the elevation at 1,703 feet, and see the plains stretch out forever. It's easy to imagine those early days, right after Jones County was organized, when they decided to name this place after Anson Jones, the last president of Texas. Incorporated back in '89, we've been doing things our own way ever since. Of course, everyone knows Anson for the Cowboy Christmas Ball. It's a tradition that just feels right here, a throwback to another era. But we've also given the world some other gifts.

Anson, TX RoadyGoat

Anson sits high on the plains, a place where you can see forever, and maybe even catch a glimpse of something unexpected. They say somebody spotted a mountain lion out near the edge of town a while back, though most folks figure it was just passing through. But that sense of the unexpected, of finding something wild right next to the familiar, that's kind of Anson in a nutshell. Established after Jones County was organized, and named for the last president of the Republic of Texas, it grew up around the business of the land. Even today, you see it in the mesquite trees dotting the horizon, and smell it in the air—this is still farm and ranch country, through and through. But Anson’s more than just another small town on the plains. It's got a history all its own. And then there's the Cowboy Christmas Ball, a tradition that draws people from all over. They come for the history, the dancing, the feeling of stepping back in time. But if you ask the locals, they'll tell you the real reason folks end up in Anson and, more importantly, stay, isn’t about the past at all. It's about the quiet, the peace, and the sense of community that you just can't find in the bigger cities. It's about the feeling that you've finally found a place where you can breathe. And maybe, just maybe, catch sight of something truly special out on the horizon.

Anson, TX RoadyGoat

Anson has always been a place where the old ways hold strong. Farming and ranching still dictate the rhythm of life here, and you can feel it in the air, especially after a good rain when the smell of mesquite hangs heavy. For years, the Cowboy Christmas Ball defined our winters, a tradition stretching back to when this town was barely a wide spot in the road. But lately, it feels like we're holding our breath, waiting to see what the future holds for our kids. The drought hit us hard a few years back, like it did most of West Texas. You could see it in the faces of the farmers at the coffee shop, hear it in the worried talk after church. Even those mountain lion sightings some folks reported out near the Salt Fork River seemed like an omen. But Anson’s always been resilient. We pull together. We’re hoping the next generation will find a way to stay, to keep the spirit of this place alive, high up here on the plains where you can see forever.

Cowboys' Christmas Ball

1885

In 1885, M. G. Rhodes hosted a wedding party and dance at his Star Hotel in Anson. One guest was Larry Chittenden, a salesman and writer visiting his uncle in Jones County. He was so inspired by the dance held that night for the cowboys and ladies that he composed a poem commemorating the occasion, “The Cowboys’ Christmas Ball.” The poem, first printed in Anson’s Texas Western Newspaper in 1890, also appeared in Chittenden’s 1893 poetry collection Ranch Berses. Over the years the poem was remembered and anthologized many times in print and song. In 1934, Leonora Barrett and Hybernia Grace revived the historic ball and its folklore. Their group performed during the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition in Dallas and at the National Folk Festival in Washington, D.C. in 1938, when they danced on the White House lawn. As annual interest increased, the group copyrighted the event and named a board of directors for the Texas Cowboys’ Christmas Ball Association. A new venue, Pioneer Hall, was built in 1938-40 with help from the Work Projects Administration. The dance has been a three-day event since 1940, and the following year Jenne Magafan’s mural in the Anson Post Office depicted the historic “Cowboy Dance.” Chittenden’s poem records real people and ranches of 1880s Jones County, along with observations of dress and customs which influence some of the formal rules and decorum of the ball today. Ladies must wear dresses and gentlemen must check their hats, and some attendees dress in period clothing. The event draws national and international visitors, while some participants are direct descendants of those immortalized in the poem. With such 19th century dances as the grand march, waltz, cotton-eye joe, polka, Virginia Reel and Schottische, this Anson tradition helps perpetuate an important aspect of life in frontier Texas. (2009)

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Hamblen, Carl Stuart

1926

Carl Stuart Hamblen, country and gospel singer, songwriter, bandleader, and radio-movie personality, was born in Kellyville, Texas, on October 20, 1908. He was the son of James Henry Hamblen, an itinerant Methodist preacher, and his wife Ernestine. Much of his childhood was spent traveling throughout the state as his father's ministerial work decreed, but in West Texas, where his father preached at the Methodist church in Hamlin, in Jones County, young Stuart was exposed to the lore and folk music of both the black field hands and cowboys working on area farms and ranches. Thus steeped in the"cowboy tradition," he learned to ride and rope and enjoyed some success during his teens as an amateur singer while working the rodeos. In 1925 he enrolled at McMurry College (now McMurry University) in Abilene to study for the teaching field. But country music quickly became his passion. In 1926 Hamblen reportedly became radio broadcasting's first real "singing cowboy" after landing a spot on KFYO in Abilene. In 1929, after winning the fifty-dollar prize at a talent contest in Dallas, he journeyed to Camden, New Jersey, where he auditioned for the Victor (later RCA Victor) Recording Company. The Victor Studios recorded and released four of Hamblen's early compositions––"The Boy in Blue," "Drifting Back to Dixie," "When the Moon Shines Down on the Mountain," and "The Big Rock Candy Mountain #2"––in June of that year. Shortly afterward Hamblen headed west for California, where he appeared on Los Angeles radio station KFI as "Cowboy Joe," possibly the earliest cowboy act to air in Los Angeles. In 1930 Hamblen briefly joined the Beverly Hillbillies, an early radio country-and-western singing group then broadcasting over KMPC in Los Angeles. He made a couple of recordings with them, although not as a lead vocalist. The following year he formed his own band, a group that included singing cowgirl Patsy Montana, and launched his highly successful broadcasting career over KFWB in Los Angeles. Under various names and titles such as Stuart Hamblen and His Lucky Stars , King Cowboy's Woolly West Revue , and The Covered Wagon Jubilee , his radio program remained immensely popular for the next two decades. In 1933 he met and married Suzanne (Suzy) Obee; they subsequently had two daughters. In 1934 Hamblen was the first West Coast artist to sign with Decca Records, where he recorded with his own band for the first time. His initial disc, "Texas Plains"/"Poor Unlucky Cowboy," became only the second record issued by that fledgling company. A prolific composer, Hamblen was said to be able to turn out a tune within a matter of minutes. The catalogue of songs that he either wrote or co-wrote beginning in the 1930s included such hits as "My Mary," "Texas Plains," "Walking My Fortune," "Ridin' Ole Paint," and "Golden River." Subsequent recording sessions with Decca in 1934 and 1935 further enhanced Hamblen as a true pioneer in the country genre. Although he concentrated almost solely on his radio program over the next ten years, his recording career began anew in the mid-1940s with the West Coast-based ARA label. This subsequently led to lengthier contracts with Columbia, RCA, and Coral Records. In the 1930s and 1940s Hamblen appeared in several B-Western movies, usually cast as a villain alongside such stars as Gene Autry , John Wayne, Roy Rogers, Wild Bill Elliott, and Bob Steele. During World War II his patriotism was clearly reflected in songs and recitations such as "Oklahoma Bill" and "They're Gonna Kill You." In addition, Hamblen enjoyed hunting in the wilds with his prize hounds and also began breeding thoroughbred racehorses; in 1945 he became the first person to have a horse flown to a race when he transported his prize racer, El Lobo, from Los Angeles to Bay Meadows in San Mateo, California, on Flying Tiger Airlines. El Lobo won the Burlingame Handicap and was flown back home the same day. As the pressures of his public career mounted Hamblen began

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Fort Phantom Hill, C.S.A.

1861

Located 10 miles east, 9 miles south on Old Butterfield Stageline. Upon secession, company of First Regiment Texas Mounted Rifles used it as an outpost to give protection against Indians. Stopover on way west for some Union sympathizers and people wanting to avoid conflict of war. In 1862 the frontier defense line was pulled back more than 30 miles east. However, scouting parties and patrols of Confederate and state troops intermittently visited the post in aggressive warfare to keep Indians near their camps and away from settlements and to check on invasion by Union forces. Usually supplying their own mounts, guns and sustenance, these men guarded the frontier until war's end. Texas Civil War Frontier Defense Texas had 2000 miles of coastline and frontier to defend from Union attack, Indian raids, marauders. Defense lines were set to give maximum protection with the few men left in the state. One line stretched from El Paso to Brownsville. Another had posts set a day's horseback ride apart from red River to the Rio Grande. Phantom Hill and other U. S. forts used by scouting parties lay in a line between. Behind these lines and to the east organized militia, citizens' posses from nearby settlements backed the Confederate and state troops to curb Indian raids. A memorial to Texans who served the Confederacy. Erected by the State of Texas 1963

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Jones County

1851

Site of emigrant trail, the frontier military road, and Fort Phantom Hill, founded in 1851 to guard the military road. County created 1858 from Bexar and Bosque counties. Named for Anson Jones (1798-1858), a veteran of San Jacinto, minister to the U.S., Secretary of State and last President of the Texas Republic. Phantom Hill, in 1858-1861 a Butterfield Overland Mail Station, was in 1861-1865 a Civil War patrol point, trying to curb frontier raids by Indians. The county was recreated in 1876, organized 1881. Anson (at first called Jones City) is county seat. (1965)

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Fort Phantom Hill

1851

Fort Phantom Hill was one of the second line of forts laid out in the early 1850s to protect the westward-moving frontier of Texas settlement. In 1849 the federal government sent Capt. Randolph B. Marcy to explore and mark the best route through the Comanchería, the vast region to the north and west of Austin inhabited by the warlike Comanche Indians. This was meant to give safer passage to immigrants headed for the California gold fields. The advanced cordon of forts, including Fort Phantom Hill, was established as a result of Marcy's recommendations. Acting on orders from Gen. Persifor F. Smith , Lt. Col. John J. Abercrombie arrived at the Clear Fork of the Brazos in the area of present Jones County with five companies of the Fifth Infantry on November 14, 1851. Smith had recently taken command of the newly organized Texas (Eighth Military) Department from the ailing Gen. William G. Belknap , who had been supervising construction of the fort on the upper Brazos that was named for him. Originally, Belknap's orders had been to build a second fort on Pecan Bayou, at a site now in Coleman County. Smith, who was unfamiliar with this area, changed the locale to the Clear Fork near its junction with Elm Creek. This unreasoned alteration affected the post's future, for the lack of an adequate water supply and the scarcity of building timbers added greatly to the hardships of the garrison. Though Lt. Clinton W. Lear, writing to his wife at Fort Washita, deemed the Clear Fork valley beautiful and abundant with game, he felt that it was never intended "for White man to occupy such a barren waste." Nevertheless, the troops dutifully began work on the new fort. A suitable stone quarry was located on Elm Creek about two miles south. Blackjack oak logs for the officers' quarters and hospital had to be brought in by ox wagon from as far away as forty miles. The company quarters and other buildings were of jacal construction. All of the buildings had stone chimneys, but only the magazine, guardhouse, and commissary storehouse were built entirely of stone. Oddly enough, Fort Phantom Hill was never officially named; military records usually refer to it as the "Post on the Clear Fork of the Brazos." Although there are several legends about the origin of the unofficial designation Phantom Hill, the name probably derives from the fact that from a distance the hill on which it was built rises sharply from the plains but seems to level out as it is approached, vanishing like a phantom. Life at the fort was difficult. Elm Creek was often dry, and the waters of the Clear Fork were brackish. At one time an eighty-foot-deep, walk-in well was dug near the guardhouse, but even it was not always reliable. More often than not, it was necessary to haul barrels of water in wagons from a spring about four miles upriver from the post. Although the isolated fort was vulnerable to attacks, its garrison had only peaceful encounters with the Indians. Certainly, it would have been a tactical blunder to match infantry against the Comanche horsemen of the plains. A band of Penateka Comanches led by Buffalo Hump occasionally came calling, as did groups of Lipans, Wichitas, Kiowas, and Kickapoos. Mrs. Emma Johnson Elkins, who as a child lived with her parents at the fort, recalled a ritual held by a group of friendly Delawares in preparation for a hunt. Jim Shaw and Black Beaver were among the noted Delaware scouts employed by the garrison as interpreters and guides. Colonel Abercrombie turned command of the post over to Lt. Col. Carlos A. Waite on April 27, 1852. In turn, Waite was succeeded by Maj. Henry H. Sibley on September 24, 1853. By this time four of the five companies had been withdrawn, and the remaining company was reinforced by Company I of the Second Dragoons. Lt. Newton C. Givens assumed command of the post on March 26, 1854, and was commander at the time it was first abandoned twelve days later, on April 6. The decline in rank of its commanders shows th

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Anson, Texas

Music in Anson

Songs About Anson

Artists From Anson

Rivers & Roads in Song near Anson

History of Anson

Anson, TX RoadyGoat

Anson, TX RoadyGoat

Anson, TX RoadyGoat

Cowboys' Christmas Ball

Hamblen, Carl Stuart

Fort Phantom Hill, C.S.A.

Jones County

Fort Phantom Hill

Things to Do in Anson

Everything Near Anson