Weatherford RoadyGoat

1856

You're driving past Weatherford, a town that sprang up in 1856. It was named for Jefferson Weatherford, a Texas state senator. For years, this was the only town between Fort Worth and El Paso, offering a vital refuge for frontier folks facing constant Indian threats, especially during the Civil War. Today, Weatherford is known for its beautiful Chandor Gardens and the Texas Railroad Museum. Remember the name Weatherford, a key stop on the Texas frontier.

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Ikard, Bose RoadyGoat

1834

You're driving past Weatherford, and right here is the story of Bose Ikard. Born into slavery in Mississippi around July of 1843, he came to Texas as a child. After emancipation, he became one of the most trusted cowboys on the legendary cattle drives led by Charles Goodnight and Oliver Loving. Ikard's skill and reliability made him a favorite, and he eventually settled here in Weatherford. He and his wife Angeline raised six children. When Bose Ikard passed away in 1929, Charles Goodnight himself honored his friend with a granite marker. Remember the name Bose Ikard, a true Texas cowboy.

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Willow Park, TX RoadyGoat

Willow Park wasn't always Willow Park. Some folks still remember when it was known as Willow Springs, a scattering of families drawn to this part of Parker County seeking a different pace. At almost a thousand feet above sea level, the slight rise in elevation offered a bit of relief from the Texas heat, a welcome change. Those early settlers relied on wells, digging deep into the earth for water during the inevitable droughts. The land was everything, and life revolved around it. The Fort Worth Stock Show & Rodeo has always been part of this area's fabric, a reminder of its agricultural roots. Things changed with the coming of Interstate 20. Suddenly, Willow Park wasn't so isolated anymore. Access to Fort Worth and beyond opened doors, and the town, officially named for the graceful willow trees that dotted the landscape, incorporated in 1963. Even with growth in healthcare, education, and retail, there's still that sense of wide-open space, a quieter life. And with the Dallas Cowboys just a short drive away, winning Super Bowl XXX in '96, there was a shared sense of pride that stretched from the football field to the front porches of Willow Park.

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Loving, Oliver

1845

Founder of three major cattle trails, Oliver Loving came from Kentucky to Texas in 1845 and to Parker County about 1855. During the Civil War (1861-65), he supplied beef to Confederate forces. With Charles Goodnight as partner on a drive to New Mexico, Loving scouted ahead of the cattle, was badly wounded by Indians, lay five days without food before his rescue, and died of gangrene on September 25, 1867. His dying wish was fulfilled when his son Joseph joined Goodnight to bring the body 600 miles by wagon for burial in this county. Recorded, 1977.

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Old City Greenwood Cemetery

1863

This cemetery was formally established by the Weatherford town council in 1863 when lots were surveyed and the exact cemetery location was staked. Previous interments were made in the unmarked streets of the town. The mayor directed those remains be moved to the new cemetery. Historian H. Smythe noted in 1877 that the cemetery was a "sadly neglected spot," without a fence. By 1925 the civic league and cemetery association had been formed. The accomplishments of its women members were many. In addition to site beautification, the driveways were widened and graveled. A water well and windmill were installed, and a sexton was employed to secure the grounds. Cemetery care declined in the 1930's and later. Among the estimated 1,000 graves are Civil War medal of honor recipient Chester Bowen; trail drivers Oliver Loving and Boze Ikard; cattleman and founder of the Citizens National Bank J.R. Couts; Governor of Texas (1902-06) S.W.T. Lanham and his son, congressman Fritz G. Lanham; veterans of many wars; and pioneers of early Texas history. Restoration of the cemetery began in the late 1980's. The site continues to serve the area. (1996)

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Baylor, George Wythe

1860

George Wythe Baylor, Confederate military officer and Texas Ranger, the son of John Walker Baylor , was born in Fort Gibson, Cherokee Nation, on August 2, 1832. On June 5, 1860, Baylor, then living in Weatherford with John R. Baylor and others, ran down a party of Indian raiders on Paint Creek in Parker County and killed and scalped nine of them. Baylor is reputed to have raised the first Confederate flag in Austin. He was commissioned a first lieutenant in Company H of the Second Cavalry, John Robert Baylor's Arizona Brigade, and served as regimental adjutant before resigning to become senior aide-de-camp to Gen. Albert Sidney Johnston in August or September 1861. After Johnston's death at the battle of Shiloh, Tennessee, on April 6, 1862, Baylor returned to Texas and was elected lieutenant colonel and commander of the Second Battalion of Henry H. Sibley 's army. When the battalion merged with the Second Cavalry regiment of the Arizona Brigade, Baylor was elected its colonel. He also commanded a regiment of cavalry during the Red River campaign of 1864 and was commended for gallantry at the battles of Mansfield and Pleasant Hill. On April 6, 1865, at the headquarters of Gen. John B. Magruder in the Fannin Hotel in Galveston, Baylor quarreled with and killed fellow staff officer John Austin Wharton . Their fight was said to have been about "military matters," specifically the reorganization of the Trans-Mississippi Department of the Confederate States. Wharton reportedly slapped Baylor's face and called him a liar, whereupon Baylor drew his revolver and shot the unarmed Wharton. Baylor later said that the incident had a been a "lifelong sorrow" to him. After the Civil War , when Lt. John B. Tays, commander of Company C, Frontier Battalion of Texas Rangers in El Paso, resigned to enter the customs service, Baylor was commissioned a first lieutenant and appointed to take his place. At this time, according to Walter Prescott Webb , Baylor "was in his prime, forty-seven years of age, six feet two inches, a fine type of the frontier gentleman. He had a fair education, a flair for writing for newspapers and an inclination to fill his reports with historical allusions." Baylor left San Antonio on August 2, 1879, with his wife, two young daughters, and a sister-in-law, riding in an ambulance and with two wagons full of provisions and household goods, the latter including a piano and a game cock and four hens. The caravan, guarded by Sgt. James B. Gillett and five other rangers, was forty-two days on the road to Ysleta, where Baylor established his headquarters. From there he opened his campaign against raiding Apaches, whom he often pursued beyond the Rio Grande, in cooperation with Mexican officials. Soon after arriving on the border Baylor "generously extended" to the Mexican government "the privilege of coming over on our side and killing all the Reservation Indians" they could find. Through the rest of 1879 and most of 1880 Baylor's rangers were occupied in the pursuit of the Mescalero Apache chief Victorio and his band, an endeavor that proved largely ineffective. In September 1880 Baylor was transferred and promoted to captain of Company A. In 1882 he was promoted to major and given command of several ranger companies. During this period he was active in the fence-cutting conflict in Nolan County. After resigning from ranger service in 1885 Baylor was elected to the Texas House of Representatives from El Paso and served as clerk of the district and circuit courts for a number of years. He died at San Antonio on March 17, 1916, and was buried in the Confederate Cemetery there. Baylor, according to Wilburn Hill King , the nineteenth-century historian of the rangers, was "noted for excellence of personal character and conduct, and soldierly courage and zeal," but Webb, more reserved in his judgment, wrote that "though a courageous individual fighter," Baylor "lacked reserve, was a poor disciplinarian, and an indifferent judge of me

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Obenchain, Alfred T.

1861

Alfred T. Obenchain, planter, state senator, and Confederate officer, was born on February 11, 1824, in Buchanan, Virginia, to Samuel and Martha (Toller) Obenchain. On May 15, 1847, Obenchain married his first wife, Susan Fluke, in Botetourt, Virginia. He and his second wife, Delphine R. Beckwith (1831-1906), were married in 1850 in Hancock County, Illinois. The couple had five children. Later, Obenchain settled with his family in Parker County, Texas, where he became a leading citizen. By 1860 he owned $8,500 in real estate and personal property, including a plantation consisting of 905 acres of land and six slaves. In October 1860 Obenchain became part owner of the Weatherford newspaper White Man , a publication that was hostile towards Indians . The paper remained in operation until its office was destroyed in December 1861. Earlier that year, Obenchain had represented Parker County at the Texas Secession Convention , and on February 1, 1861, was one of the signers of the Texas Secession Ordinance. From November 4, 1861, to January 14, 1862, Obenchain served as senator in the Ninth Texas Legislature for District 20, which represented Erath, Johnson, Palo Pinto, Parker, and Tarrant counties. On January 29, 1862, Obenchain was excused as a senator and appointed by Gov. Francis R. Lubbock as lieutenant colonel and second-in-command to Col. James M. Norris in the Texas Frontier Regiment . Norris soon tired of the strain of military command, however, and returned to his law practice in McLennan County. Lieutenant Colonel Obenchain took over the force at Fort Belknap and caused controversy due to his lack of understanding of the frontier and his strict discipline. Charles Goodnight , an officer under his command, described him as "tyrannical and arrogant." This unpopularity led to his murder by two of his own men at Hubbard Creek in Stephens County near Camp Breckenridge on August 16, 1862. He was buried in an unmarked grave on the frontier.

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Weatherford, Texas

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