The Promised-Land View

A few miles east of us, the land lifts into Pisgah Ridge, the northern tip of the Tehuacana Hills. It is not a mountain. Its high point, 561 feet, was leveled by a landowner in the 1950s. But the people who settled it gave it a mountain's name.

In the Bible, Moses climbs Mount Nebo, to the top of Pisgah, and is shown the Promised Land. On this ridge, two of the early settlements were called Mount Pisgah and Mount Nebo. We have found no record that explains the choice. We don't think it needs one. Look out over this country in the evening light and the names make their own case.

They were not the first to be drawn here. The state historical marker on the ridge says fish, mussels and game brought people to it for centuries. Along Richland Creek, archaeologists have traced people back more than 10,000 years.

The view outlasted the towns.

The settlers arrived in the 1840s. Families of Mercer's Colony clustered around the ridge between 1842 and 1845 for protection. In 1844, Eleazar Nash came from Massachusetts and named the Pisgah settlement; he later left for the California gold rush. Early ridge families included Bowman, Tramel, Pickett, Carroll, Anderson, Meador, Garlick, Roberts, Ross and Tankersley.

A road ran along the ridge. The Old Springfield Road carried travelers between Houston and North Texas and crossed Richland Creek at the Love bridge. By about 1850 there was a stage inn near Richland Crossing. Four settlements grew up along the ridge, north to south: Richland Crossing, Mount Pisgah, Mount Nebo and Rushing. In dry summers, cattle were driven up to the ridge's open range near water. The soft limestone held many caves, most of them now badly eroded.

In 1871 the railroad came through Richland instead, and the ridge towns began to drain away. Pisgah got its own post office in 1891 and lost it the next year. Around 1900 it still had a school, stores, a church and a cotton gin with a gristmill. By the mid-1960s, it was a cemetery and a few houses.

The view outlasted the towns. So did the question those settlers were answering: what it means to find good ground, and stay.

See The Stay →