Movers USA - moving - Abilene

Moving - Abilene, Texas

If you are looking for a local moving company to relocate you in or out of Abilene, TX, we can help you. Continental Relocations's moving services include packing, crating, moving, and storage if you need some time to search for your new home.

To help familiarize you with this fine neighborhood, please read our brief history about Abilene, TX. It's interesting.

A Brief History of Abilene, Texas

Following a pattern that was familiar in the development of the West, the city of Abilene, Texas, was founded as a direct result of the building of a railroad. In January of 1881, the Texas and Pacific Railway completed tracks to the townsite of Abilene, and in March of that year an auction sale of town lots was held. Since that time, the city of Abilene has continued to grow and develop, until today, it is known as the commercial, educational, medical, and cultural center of a 22-county trade area.

The first development in the area occurred in 1852 when Fort Phantom Hill was established a few miles northeast of the future location of the city. This Army post was one of a series of garrisons erected to protect the white settlements from Indians. It was also an overnight stop on the overland mail route that followed the Butterfield Trail. The Fort was in use for only three years before the Army abandoned it.

In 1858, a county was carved out of Bexar and Travis Counties and named Taylor in honor of Edward Taylor who was an early settler in West Texas. By 1877, there were several families in this area, and approximately a dozen families were settled in the southern part of the county in a cut or gap in the Callahan Divide. This little settlement, which was named Buffalo Gap, established a post office and secured regular mail service. By 1878, the population of the county had increased to approximately 400 people, and on July 3rd of that year the county was officially organized with Buffalo Gap designated as the county seat.

The railroad considered two possible routes through West Central Texas, one by way of Buffalo Gap and an alternate by way of Fort Phantom Hill. When it seemed quite probable that the road would be built through Buffalo Gap, land values in and around the county seat were driven rapidly upward by speculators. A dispute over land ownership resulted in litigation and caused a delay in the building of the railroad.

In order for the railroad's purposes to be accomplished, a meeting of various officials, civic leaders, and landowners was arranged in the summer of 1880. It was necessary for the group to select a town site in the vicinity and to include the railroad to route its tracks through or near this site. T & P officials negotiated a deal with the owners of some property to the north of Buffalo Gap that bypassed the already thriving town.

One of those landowners, Clabe Merchant, known as "the father of Abilene", reportedly chose the name for the new town. "Abilene" was selected in honor of the Kansas town to which ranchers had been driving their cattle. The name means "grassy plain" and originally came from a Biblical reference in the third chapter of Luke to a Middle East tetrarchy.

Other Moving Destination cities in Texas

ICC MC 414146
DOT 981371