Medicine Mound, Texas
Encyclopedia
Medicine Mound is a ghost town
Ghost town
A ghost town is an abandoned town or city. A town often becomes a ghost town because the economic activity that supported it has failed, or due to natural or human-caused disasters such as floods, government actions, uncontrolled lawlessness, war, or nuclear disasters...

 in southeastern Hardeman County
Hardeman County, Texas
As of the census of 2000, there were 4,724 people, 1,943 households, and 1,319 families residing in the county. The population density was 7 people per square mile . There were 2,358 housing units at an average density of 3 per square mile...

 in West Texas
West Texas
West Texas is a vernacular term applied to a region in the southwestern quadrant of the United States that primarily encompasses the arid and semi-arid lands in the western portion of the state of Texas....

. It consists of two buildings, the former Hicks-Cobb general store
General store
A general store, general merchandise store, or village shop is a rural or small town store that carries a general line of merchandise. It carries a broad selection of merchandise, sometimes in a small space, where people from the town and surrounding rural areas come to purchase all their general...

 and the W.W. Cole Building, a combination bank
Bank
A bank is a financial institution that serves as a financial intermediary. The term "bank" may refer to one of several related types of entities:...

, drugstore
Pharmacy
Pharmacy is the health profession that links the health sciences with the chemical sciences and it is charged with ensuring the safe and effective use of pharmaceutical drugs...

, gasoline station (with rusty pumps still standing), and post office. The Hicks-Cobb building has been turned into a regional history
History
History is the discovery, collection, organization, and presentation of information about past events. History can also mean the period of time after writing was invented. Scholars who write about history are called historians...

 and cultural museum
Museum
A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

 by its former owner, Myna Potts
Myna Potts
Myna Gayle Hicks Potts is an historical preservationist from Chillicothe in Hardeman County in West Texas who is the curator of the Medicine Mound Museum in the nearby ghost town of Medicine Mound. Only two buildings remain in the town...

 (born 1927), of nearby Chillicothe
Chillicothe, Texas
Chillicothe is a city in Hardeman County, Texas, United States. The population was 798 at the 2000 census.The historical preservationist Myna Potts resides in Chillicothe...

, the daughter of store co-owner Ira Lee Hicks (1886-1966). The museum is a personal testimony of Potts' life. It contains a large collection of photograph
Photograph
A photograph is an image created by light falling on a light-sensitive surface, usually photographic film or an electronic imager such as a CCD or a CMOS chip. Most photographs are created using a camera, which uses a lens to focus the scene's visible wavelengths of light into a reproduction of...

s of area pioneer
Settler
A settler is a person who has migrated to an area and established permanent residence there, often to colonize the area. Settlers are generally people who take up residence on land and cultivate it, as opposed to nomads...

s. Potts considers the preservation a way to honor the contributions of rural
Rural
Rural areas or the country or countryside are areas that are not urbanized, though when large areas are described, country towns and smaller cities will be included. They have a low population density, and typically much of the land is devoted to agriculture...

 Americans
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

.

A sign proclaims: “Medicine Mound: Population Zero”, but the Texas road map claims fifty individuals live in the general area. Medicine Mound can be accessed southward from Chillicothe via Farm to Market Road 91, which connects with F-M Road 1167 at the ghost town and proceeds northward to U.S. Highway 287 several miles west of Chillicothe. The ghost town is southeast of the county seat
County seat
A county seat is an administrative center, or seat of government, for a county or civil parish. The term is primarily used in the United States....

 of Quanah
Quanah, Texas
Quanah is a city in and the county seat of Hardeman County, Texas, United States, northwest of Fort Worth, and a few miles from the Oklahoma-Texas state line...

. southeast of Lake Pauline, and north of the Pease River
Pease River
The Pease River is river in Texas in the United States; it is a tributary of the Red River that runs in an easterly direction through West Texas . It was discovered and mapped for the first time in 1856 by Jacob de Córdova, who found the river while surveying for the Galveston, Houston and...

.

Medicine Mound has received non-profit status
Non-profit organization
Nonprofit organization is neither a legal nor technical definition but generally refers to an organization that uses surplus revenues to achieve its goals, rather than distributing them as profit or dividends...

 and has been placed in the domain of the newly-established Downtown Medicine Mound Preservation Group, a 501(c)(3) public charity. Potts operates the museum on Saturday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., and by appointment through her Chillicothe telephone. There are four historical markers in Medicine Mound to commemorate the community itself, the Hicks-Cobb store, a Works Progress Administration
Works Progress Administration
The Works Progress Administration was the largest and most ambitious New Deal agency, employing millions of unskilled workers to carry out public works projects, including the construction of public buildings and roads, and operated large arts, drama, media, and literacy projects...

 sanitation
Sanitation
Sanitation is the hygienic means of promoting health through prevention of human contact with the hazards of wastes. Hazards can be either physical, microbiological, biological or chemical agents of disease. Wastes that can cause health problems are human and animal feces, solid wastes, domestic...

 project in the 1930s, and a small 19th century cemetery
Cemetery
A cemetery is a place in which dead bodies and cremated remains are buried. The term "cemetery" implies that the land is specifically designated as a burying ground. Cemeteries in the Western world are where the final ceremonies of death are observed...

.

Medicine Mound (singular) is named for four nearby cone-shaped dolomite
Dolomite
Dolomite is a carbonate mineral composed of calcium magnesium carbonate CaMg2. The term is also used to describe the sedimentary carbonate rock dolostone....

 hills called Medicine Mounds (plural), which rise some 350 feet above the surrounding plains. They were named by the Comanche
Comanche
The Comanche are a Native American ethnic group whose historic range consisted of present-day eastern New Mexico, southern Colorado, northeastern Arizona, southern Kansas, all of Oklahoma, and most of northwest Texas. Historically, the Comanches were hunter-gatherers, with a typical Plains Indian...

 Indians
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...

, who maintained that the mounds are the dwelling place of powerful, benevolent spirits, which can cure ills, assure successful hunts, and protect in battle. In an annual ritual the Comanche came to Medicine Mound with cedar
Cedar wood
Cedar wood comes from several different trees that grow in different parts of the world, and may have different uses.* California incense-cedar, from Calocedrus decurrens, is the primary type of wood used for making pencils...

incense taken from nearby Cedar Mound. The mounds are on private property but can be observed some five miles in the distance by vehicle.
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