Gunsight, Texas, Stephens County. (original) (raw)
History on a Pecan Shell
In 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.
Gunsight Community Historical Marker with the church and what may have been the school in the background.
Photo courtesy Dustin Martin, March 2017
Gunsight, Texas Historical Marker:
Gunsight Community
Records 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)
A Visit to Gunsight, Texas
Photographer's Note
Remote towns, just dots on the map, such as Gunsight and Eolian often yield the most interesting subjects - Barclay Gibson
Gunsight church on CR 157
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, February 2007
Shed wih cactus in Gunsight
Photo courtesy Barclay Gibson, February 2007
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..." more
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