Mustang Prairie
N 31° 15.044 W 096° 38.476
14R E 724617 N 3459789
Marker Location 16 mi. E of Marlin on SH 7 to Kosse; 3 mi. SW on SH 14 to CR 283
Marker Year 1997
Waymark Code: WMTP4V
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 12/21/2016
Views: 8
In the early 1820s, a few trappers began moving into the Mexican territory that later became known as Mustang Prairie, Reagan and Marlin. By 1833, Sarahville de Viesca (later called Fort Viesca) was established by empresario, Sterling Robertson, on a high bluff overlooking the Falls on the Brazos.
His colonists lived there in relative safety, and a company of rangers guarded them when they worked in the nearby fields.
By the 1830s, several families had settled in the region and Mustang Prairie was born. However growth in the settlement was slow until the 1860s-1870s with the outbreak of the civil war and the arrival of the railroad at nearby Bremond. A wagon train load of settlers arrived from Alabama, Mississippi, and Tennessee in 1866.
Marker Number: 11872
Marker Text:
Though included in the Sterling Robertson grant of 1834, Mustang Prairie had only a handful of settlers prior to the Civil War. With Reconstruction and the 1870 arrival of the railroad at nearby Bremond came many business people. The majority of settlers were from Alabama, Tennessee, and Mississippi. The first dated burial in Mustang Prairie Cemetery was that of seven-year-old Laura M. Jones in 1869. Most of the families of Mustang Prairie are interred here.
By 1872, Jonathan B. Davis had established the New Hope Baptist Church. Schoolchildren first attended classes in the church building; a three-room frame schoolhouse was built in 1877. In 1910 Mustang Prairie was granted a "conditional" eighth grade, and a two-story addition was built. By 1921 a storm had destroyed the building and its two-story addition; the original building was rebuilt.
By 1939, only 13 students remained in the school, which was closed in 1940; students transferred to Kosse, later to Bremond. Within the decade, New Hope Baptist Church services were discontinued; the church building was demolished by tornado in the early 1980s. Now a small community, Mustang Prairie upholds a proud history of influence in Falls County and beyond.
(1997)
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