Saint Jo's 1873 Stonewall Saloon: A Chisholm Trail Landmark Now Open as a Museum

The stone building at 100 South Main Street in Saint Jo is the oldest structure still standing in that town, and one of the more honest artifacts of the Chisholm Trail era in north Texas. The Stonewall Saloon — named after Confederate General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson, a dedication that tells you something about who was doing the building in 1873 — was the first permanent structure erected in Saint Jo. It went up the same year Irby Boggess and Joseph Howell platted the townsite, and it did not go up in wood.

The Building and the Trail

Saint Jo sat at the last supply stop in Texas before cattle drives crossed the Red River at Red River Station, fifteen miles to the north. The drovers who funneled through town in the 1870s and 1880s needed water, provisions, and somewhere to spend a few hours before the river. The Stonewall Saloon served the hands — Anglo cowboys, Black drovers who made up roughly a quarter of the trail workforce, and vaquero crews from south Texas whose horsemanship had assembled the herds in the brush country hundreds of miles south.

The Chisholm Trail connection is exactly what the museum's exhibits document: bar fittings and drover equipment, photographs of trail-era Saint Jo, cattle-trail artifacts, and the town's founding narrative. The original stone construction that made the building Saint Jo's first permanent structure also made it durable enough to outlast everything around it.

After the Trail

The saloon closed in 1899 as the trail-town economy collapsed — the Fort Worth and Denver Railway had bypassed Saint Jo in 1882, and without rail access the cattle-commerce businesses had no replacement economy when the drives stopped. The building became a restaurant in 1902 and Citizens National Bank by 1905. The bank's vault is still visible inside, a reminder that the building's second career was as serious and permanent as its first.

In 1958, the building was reopened as the Stonewall Saloon Museum. In 2008, a group of local residents purchased it. By 2011, the organization had formalized as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit. It is volunteer-staffed, open to the public during regular hours, and offers group and school tours.

What the Museum Holds

The exhibits cover several overlapping stories: the saloon era and Chisholm Trail commerce, the founding of Saint Jo by the Boggess-Howell partnership (and the irony of naming a town for a teetotaler whose first building was a saloon), the Singletary brothers' 1849 gold search that brought the first Anglo settlers to the Head of Elm springs, and the broader sweep of Montague County heritage. Native American artifacts and photographs of multi-generational local families fill out the picture.

The Stonewall Saloon Museum sits on the same historic courthouse square as Saint Jo Trade Days, the recurring market event that draws antique dealers and day-trippers from across north Texas. The two together make Saint Jo a meaningful stop for anyone interested in north Texas heritage.

The Local Lore

Old buildings with violent histories tend to collect ghost stories, and the Stonewall Saloon is no exception. Local lore — oral tradition, not documented history — includes reports of footsteps when no one is walking, cold spots near the original bar, and a male figure sometimes described near where the counter stood. Paranormal investigation groups have visited. The museum's frontier saloon era involved the rough commerce of trail-town life: gambling, arguments, and the friction that alcohol, money, and long-distance travel in a lawless landscape reliably generated. Whether specific documented deaths occurred on the premises is not established in available sources. The ghost stories are local color, not history, and should be understood as such.

The Stonewall Saloon Museum is located at 100 South Main Street in Saint Jo. Admission is modest; hours vary by season. Group tours are available by arrangement.