Silver Valley, Texas, Coleman County. (original) (raw)

Silver Valley Cemetery
Historic Texas Cemetery
Photo Courtesy Dustin Martin, August 2017

History in a Pecan Shell

The origin of the name is unknown but the town dates from 1886 when B. E. Smith and B. R. Brown settled here. in the late 1890s a store opened and after a post office was granted it opened inside the store. In 1910 the post office moved alongside the tracks of the Pecos and Northern Texas Railroad.

Silver Valley had 67 people present for the 1940 Census which has since dwindled to 20 - the figure given for both 1980 and 1990.

Historical Marker

Silver Valley Cemetery

Silver Valley Cemetery The first known grave here is that of Helen A. (Crocker) Averitt, who, like her husband, John C. Averitt, was an early area spiritual leader and educator. Her burial in 1881 predated the purchase and designation of the land as a cemetery by 20 years. Originally called Robinson's Peak Cemetery, the burial ground contains the graves of other early settlers and their families. Veterans from every branch of the U.S. military were laid to rest here, as were the families of Mexican railroad workers in the early 20th century. An association organized in 1958 maintains the cemetery, which is still in use and remains a link to the history of Silver Valley.
Historic Texas Cemetery - 2002

Burned down in the late 1990s
Photo courtesy David Buck

Silver Valley, Texas Forum

• Subject: Silver Valley
  My father, Rex Buck, was born in this home at Silver Valley, Texas in 1928. Unfortunately, this home burned down in the late 1990s. His father, Oscar Buck, came to Coleman County from Arkadelphia AR as a young man about the turn of the century. My grandfather was active in politics as Chair of the Coleman County Democratic Party, farmed parcels of north-central Coleman County, owned and ran the store at Echo and sold insurance from an office above the Owl Drug store in Coleman until his retirement in the late 1940's. Thank you for your informative [magazine] and the smiles it brings. - David Buck, June 11, 2007
• Silver Valley was suggested for inclusion by Rebekah Latham who wrote: "Ten miles north of Coleman, Texas, on Hwy. 84 is a ghost town: Silver Valley. My husband was the student pastor of the Baptist church there in 1949-1951 while attending Howard Payne College, now University, in Brownwood. The small congregation met in the old abandoned school house, and there were portions of sidewalks among the weeds in the area. There was one small general store operating on the highway at that time."

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