Published: February 14, 2009 11:09 am      

John Watson: Kimball once a bustling town

As you head down Texas 174 toward Meridian, just past the Kimball Bridge over the Brazos River, the Kimball Bend Park is on the right.

The entrance to the park has been moved farther west so as not to be so near the bridge and to make entering and exiting the park safer.

As you drive into the park you notice several old rock walls, remains from buildings of an earlier era, which have been enclosed within cyclone fencing. These are the remains of the town of Kimball.

Kimball, named for Richard B. Kimball of New York, established in 1853, was one of the first towns in Bosque County.

This was the location where many of the westward bound wagon trains forded the Brazos River. In 1865 a ferry was built to carry the travelers across the river. The ferry operated until about 1915. By this time the town was quietly dying out.

This location was also a major river crossing for the old Chisholm Trail during the 1870s. After crossing here the trail stayed between the Brazos and Nolan Rivers, following mainly the west side of the Nolan until reaching Wardville where it crossed the Nolan and went on up by Fort Worth and then to Red River Station. Here they crossed over into Indian Territory to continue on their way north.

During this time tens of thousands of Texas longhorn cattle forded the river at this spot on their way to the markets in Abilene, Kansas and other northern destinations.

With the westward bound pioneers crossing the Brazos at this point, and the drovers bringing their herds of longhorn cattle through on their way north, Kimball became a prosperous little town.

By the mid 1880s Kimball had a population of about 250. There were several churches, a variety of businesses including a cotton gin, gristmill, two hotels, several stores and numerous saloons.

Many of the residents of the Goat Neck area of southwestern Johnson County went across the river to buy supplies at Kimball because it was much closer than Cleburne.

The demise of Kimball started with the coming of barbed wire in the late 1880s and early1890s. As the land owners began to fence off their land, there was no more open range to drive the great herds of cattle through.

The railroads came to this area about the same time as the barbed wire, and it was cheaper and more convenient to ship cattle to market by rail.

When Santa Fe put its line through they missed the town by three miles to have a narrower crossing of the river. After losing the cattle trade and missing out on the railroad, this was the final blow for the town.

Many of the residents stayed until the early part of the 20th century before moving on. By the 1940s Kimball was nothing more than a ghost town. There were only a few residents left in the area when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers bought up the property in the area in preparation for the construction of Lake Whitney.

Being on the northern end of Lake Whitney, one of the great recreational sites in North Texas, this was a perfect location for a park. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers developed the Kimball Bend Park here with a boat ramp for access to the lake.

This park has a lot of historical significance. In June 1963, Troop 326, Boy Scouts of America, Longhorn Council of Fort Worth erected a pink granite marker telling some of the history of Kimball.

Billy Cate has placed a Chisholm Trail marker near the granite marker the Boy Scouts placed there, denoting this as part of the old Chisholm Trail.

Over the years the park had become run down, but over the past two years the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has made considerable improvements to the park. After moving the entrance, as mentioned earlier, they have made improvements on the road through the park. The boat ramp has been redone as well.

New covered picnic tables have been added along with new restroom facilities.

The weather will be warming soon, and this would be a good day trip. Take a picnic lunch, fish a little and enjoy the outdoors. While there you might think about all the early pioneers who crossed the river here on their way west and all the Texas longhorns that crossed here on their way to northern markets.



John Watson is a Cleburne resident who can be reached at texastraveler@sbcglobal.net.