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History on a Pecan
ShellIn view of
the Gunsight Mountains, the town was settled in the late 1870s with a post
office being granted in 1880 when the population was 50. The town was all set
for a boom with the discovery of oil in the 1920s. The town also had the benefit
of being near the railroad (The Wichita Falls and Southern). The boom only raised
the population to 150 and Gunsight lost both its railroad connection and its post
office in the 1920s. The town's history from that point on is only known to a
few.
It no longer appears on the state map and the population is given
as a mere six people. The TxDoT County map shows the town in the smallest of print
and a small cemetery at the site.
See Historical
Marker
A
Visit to Gunsight, TexasPhotographer's
Note
Remote towns,
just dots on the map, such as Gunsight and Eolian
often yield the most interesting subjects - Barclay
Gibson |
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Gunsight
(From Cut
and Shoot, Gun Barrel City, Gunsight, Point Blank and Winchester, "Texas
Tales" column by Mike Cox)
"The
stereotypical Texan is seldom gun shy when it comes to settling a difficulty with
violence, a mythology reflected in the number of Lone
Star communities with names evocative of rough and tumble ways.
At
least five such towns come to mind: Cut
and Shoot, Gun
Barrel City, Gunsight, Point
Blank and Winchester...
Gunsight, a mostly ghost town in Stephens County with only six residents
as of the last census, dates back to 1879. It was named for a set of low mountains
that from a distance look like the V-shaped notch in the middle of a gunsight.
A year after its settlement, Gunsight got a post office which lasted it
until the Breckenridge oil
boom of the late teens played out in the 1920s when the Wichita Falls and Southern
Railroad closed its station there..."
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Gunsight,
Texas Historical Marker TextGunsight
CommunityRecords
indicate that Gunsight existed on a wagon road from Fort
Griffin to Stephenville
in 1858. Settlement of the town, however, did not occur until the 1870s. The first
recorded burial here was that of Lewis McCleskey in 1877. Gunsight developed as
a stage stop and by 1880 contained a post office, school, two churches, gristmill,
general store, and a cotton gin. The local economy, sustained by cotton
farming and ranching, was boosted
by an area oil boom in the 1920s. The town began a steady decline after World
War II and today consists of a few houses, a few buildings, and this cemetery.
(1995) | |
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