Earliest pioneer, Jesse Stem from Ohio,
came to the Clear Fork for his asthma in 1852, as Indian Agent to the
Comanche Reservation and planted a significant crop of corn and oats on
acquired land planning to stay. Lynch (1858) spotted a promising piece
of land passing through the area on his way to the California Gold Rush
in 1849 and returned to settle on it, living here 54 years with wife
Fannie Gunsolus, Albany’s first business minded woman. Adamantly
anti-war, he became County Judge, and built the west half of the Lynch
Building, oldest stone structure in the Shackelford County Courthouse
Historic District. Other early pioneers included W. H. Ledbetter (1859),
T. E. Jackson (1860), George W. Greer (1861), and Joe B. Matthews
(1861).
Earliest retail efforts at Griffin by
Jackson and F. E. Conrad built Albany. Moran, for a short while, was
also called Hicks. County population peaked in 1930 at 6,695 as a result
of oil exploration yet slid consistently after the boom days, but now
tops the state average by 6% in number of High School Graduates living
here.
In 1938, a local boy, Robert Nail, Jr.
and his childhood friend, Alice Reynolds returned from their respective
universities and created The Fort Griffin Fandangle,
locally written, directed, produced, and performed every June telling
the history of the area. James Ball, Marge Sedwick Bray, and Betsy Black
Parsons continued the tourism production as the successful true
People’s Theater Nail intended. This led Albany in maintaining its
historic structures and developing the nationally prominent Old Jail Art
Center––pride in one’s county and one’s self is the end result of
Shackelford County living.