Coleman County Medical Center

History

A Bit of History
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Coleman County named in honor of Robert M Coleman aidedecamp to General Sam Houston is as rich in heritage as in natural resources Throughout the county documented evidence exists describing life as it must have been during the early days of settlement

One of the historic points of interest near Coleman is the town of Santa Anna located on the south slope of two large hills called quotSanta Annas Peakquot named after a Comanche Indian Chief On the Texas map of 1835 the two hills were the only landmarks except for streams These hills also provided Indians and Texas Rangers with a lookout point At the base of one of the hills is a designated Historical site of a Texas Ranger Headquarters building

In the summer of 1856 Major Van Dorn in the United States Army established Camp Colorado on Jim Ned Creek in what is now Coleman County Some remains of the stone and wooden buildings of this post still exist Major Van Dorn had a detachment of the Second Calvary there for two or three years In 1860 before the Civil War Capt EK Smith commanded there The presence of this garrison attracted a few settlers though they made no permanent improvements JE Mc Cord later a banker and prominent citizen of Coleman City was lieutenant of a Ranger company posted at Home Creek during 1860 Camp Colorado was abandoned after the Civil War

On February 11858 the legislature defined the boundaries of a number of counties among them Coleman named in honor of Robert M Coleman a figure in the Texas revolution Nearly twenty years passed before the country was sufficiently settled to maintain a county government In 1875 a county government organized and in the fall of 1876 Coleman the county seat was laid off A quotation from an account in 1877 reads quotOn a site that had been barren of any vestige of human habitation the beautiful plateau being the haunt of the buffalo more often than of domestic animals was in the latter part of 1876 the growing little village of Coleman City whose first house had been completed scarcely two months before and which now contained twenty seven first class buildings with merchants lawyers building contractors a good school hotel and a telegraph linequot A year later Coleman had a population of four hundred and was incorporated

Early Census Listings
1870 347
1880 3603
1890 10077

Beginning in 1875 this country soon became one of the favorite centers of the range stock industry The county was one immense pasture and excepting the tradesmen at the county seat and in one or two other places the population consisted almost entirely of the cattlemen and their quotoutfitsquot In about 1880 the farmer class made some advance into the region specially when it became known that the Santa Fe Railroad would soon be built In 1882 it was estimated that not over four thousand acres had been touched by the plow while the livestock at that time numbered about 9000 horses and mules 40000 cattle and 85000 sheep and other stock

In 1882 the taxable values were 1733603 livestock being assessed at 723768 in 1903 5611513 and in 1919 12259645

In March 1886 what was then known as the main line of the G C amp SF Railroad reached Coleman and extended through the county the same year A tap line was built to reach Coleman City it being the policy of early railroads to avoid towns that did not offer attractive subsides Coleman was one of a number of such cases in Texas This tap line subsequently became the starting point of the quotColeman cutoffquot of the Santa Fe Railroad as it built northwest to Texico

Coleman City which had a population of 906 in 1890 and 1362 in 1900 has developed both commercially and residentially It has the improvements and advantages of the progressive West Texas towns and is the center of a large volume of trade