Medicine Mound, Hardeman County
The townsite of Medicine Mound had long been a thriving village when brothers-in-law Lon L. Cobb and Ira Lee Hicks arrived in the area with their families in 1927 and opened a general merchandise store. The store sold such items as work clothes and clothing material, shoes, cotton sacks, groceries and horse feed. Regular customers warmed themselves by the fire in winter, indulging in conversation and checkers. In 1933 a fire all but destroyed the townsite, but Hicks and Cobb rebuilt that year with round granite cobblestones from Oklahoma. Lon L. Cobb died in 1942. Hicks carried on and the store was among the last businesses to serve area residents and migrant agricultural workers. Ira Lee Hicks died in 1966; the structure became a community gathering place and a Medicine Mound museum. (1999)