Archer City, TX
Posted by: 
WalksfarTX
N 33° 35.686 W 098° 37.486
14S E 534816 N 3717288
Located on the east side of the Archer County Courthouse square.
Waymark Code: WM16H15
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 08/01/2022
Views: 3
Two story red brick building is former Masonic Lodge. Surprisingly there was no cornerstone. The lodge was chartered in 1890. The courthouse was erected in 1891, so the lodge building probably dates from this time period.
Archer City is 25 miles SW of Wichita Falls on Hwy 79. Nearly 2,000 people live in the city. The school is Class 2A in sports.
Texas Escapes
"Archer City is hometown of Larry McMurtry, famous Texas novelist and bibliophile.
The town was the setting for two movies written by McMurtry. The ruins of the theater of "The Last Picture Show" remain across the street from the courthouse.
The county was established and Archer City designated county seat by the state legislature in 1858, but the county was not organized until after the removal of the Kiowas and Comanches from the area. The townsite was originally surveyed in 1876 and was intended to lie on the projected paths of three railroad lines—the Fort Worth and Denver, the Houston and Texas Central, and the Red River and Rio Grande. A local post office opened in 1878, and in about 1879 C. B. Hutto settled nearby and platted the town; he donated land for a town square, a lot for a county jail, and lots for the construction of Protestant churches. He also donated a "frameless wooden building" to be used as a county courthouse."