There are two things that might have happened which would have changed the history of Erath County. First, in the 1840s Sam Houston tried to pass the Franco-Texienne Bill that would have allowed French colonists to build a fort on the site of Stephenville, along with 3 million acres to settle the area. This was ten years before Erath County was settled by Anglos. Second, a few years later, the Erath County area was almost sold as the 60,000 acre tract known Kimball’s Block to a group of New England farmers. Either of these developments would have drastically changed the character of Erath County.

Auten, M. L. A History of Erath county, Unpublished Master’s Thesis, Hardin-Simmons University , August, 1951, in Texas TechSouthwest Collection; and Day, James M. and Dorman H. Winfrey (eds.) The Indian Papers of Texas and the Southwest: 1825-1916, 5 vols.Austin: The Pemberton Press, 1966.