Emerald Townsite

The first platted town in Crockett County, Emerald was founded in 1889 by Fort Worth & Rio Grande Railway Immigration Agent T. W. Wilkinson. It was to be an agricultural shipping point on a planned extension of the F.W. & R.G. Publicized from Maine to Minnesota for mild climate and fertile land, it acquired a post office on April 8, 1890. Mail came from San Angelo via Knickerbocker (50 miles northeast). Charles Hatch and E. C. Moore were successive postmasters. In August 1890 the town was in the path of a prairie fire. Although valiant work turned the fire, it was visible for two nights before and two nights after it circled the town. Also in 1890, the county's first school session was held in a tent in Emerald by Mrs. John Noyes. After a frame schoolhouse was built, Mrs. John Ketchpaw taught there. Miss Ada Williams taught the last school term in the spring of 1893. Confident it would be the county seat, Emerald nevertheless lost in the election of 1891 to the E. M. Powell water well site (now Ozona). Wilkinson protested, to no avail. After the residents began to move to the Powell Well, Emerald Post Office closed on December 7, 1891. The townsite thus became one of the many colonization failures in West Texas.

Emerald Townsite is a historical marker in Ozona, Crockett County, dedicated in 1978. It is one of 29 historical markers documented in Crockett County in the Texas Historical Commission Atlas, among 36 historic sites cataloged across the county.

The site sits at 30.7009, -101.0922 near Ozona. The nearest cataloged historic site is Ozona's Water System (historical marker), about 6.3 miles away. Others within a short drive include Perner House, The, Carson, Ira and Wilma, House, and Crockett County Jail.

This record corresponds to Texas Historical Commission Atlas #5105001471. Use the map below for its exact position and turn-by-turn directions.