INDIAN GAP
INDIAN GAP history is filled
with Indian lore. "Old settlers say that an Indian chief
was killed there years ago in a fight between two tribes of Indians.
He was buried on the mountain top where the Gerrell’s monument
now stands. Traditionally the mountain top was used for Indian dances and
celebrations. John A. McCaleb said that when he was
a child there were no trees growing on the top of the mountain, as if it
had been used for a dancing ground, and that he had found many Indian
arrow heads and beads there. Tradition also says that the point of the
mountain was used for an Indian lookout. The Comanche Indians
used the gap between the mountains as a route for raiding the area".
Indian
Gap is approximately eighteen miles west of Hamilton on FM 218
near the Mills and Comanche County lines and in the western
corner of Hamilton County.
Hawley Gerrell settled at
Indian Gap in 1877. Cutting rock from the mountain, he constructed a
two-story limestone house which still stands. His home was used as a
post office, a church, a school, a store, and a social center.
James G. Robinson was named
the first postmaster at Indian Gap on 23 January, 1879. He was
succeed by Hawley Gerrells on 22 November, 1880.
Dr. John Richard Reiger, born
30 May, 1834, in Carlisle County, KY, came to Hamilton County
in May, 1876, and in August, 1876, bought 235 acres of land at School
Land Cove from Robert S. Howell. Dr. Reiger, a prominent doctor
at Indian Gap, purchased another 100 acres later. Dr. Reiger practiced
medicine in both Indian Gap and in Pottsville.
John Boler,
born 22 April, 1827, in Clark County, AL, purchased 240 acres of
land on the Cowhouse Creek near Indian Gap in August, 1883.
In 1885 Mr. Boler moved to Pottsville
to open a store.
Henry Adkins Shipman, who arrived in Hamilton County in
November, 1884, opened the townsite of Indian Gap in
1889 moving his store
(purchased from Hawley Gerrells) and post office to this townsite
in 1892.
Aubrey Keel was born in Indian
Gap in 1901. In 1998, at age 97, he is astoundingly active and alert. Mr.
Keel uses two computers. See his biography in the Biographies
of Hamilton County.
INDIAN
GAP PICNIC & RODEO, 1934
"INDIAN
GAP, TX." The Handbook of Texas Online