for nearly a week before he died.”
The property was also on the Butterfield Overland Mail
Route, which stretched from St. Louis to San Francisco.
The route was part of a contract given by the US Postal
Service in 1857 to create a southern mail route that could
be open year round since the northern mail route was
often closed because of snow. According to Fuqua and
her husband, the stagecoach tracks are still visible on the
property. Fuqua said her grandfather told her that there
was buried gold somewhere on the farm. The gold was
reported to be there because of a stagecoach robbery;
although the robbers were caught, the gold was never
recovered. The story goes that the gold is still buried
somewhere on the banks of Mary’s Creek somewhere on
the farm.
The house itself was updated when the Lyon family
added central heat and air conditioning, although when
Fuqua’s family lived in the house there were still Dearborn
heaters providing heat in the home. It has a two-sided fire-
place, but Fuqua never remembers seeing a fire in the fire-
place. The house also boasts a wraparound porch where
she remembers spending lots of time. The rock on the side
of the house was taken from the property. Fuqua’s parents
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added the green tin roof and took the carpet up showing
off the original wood floors.
“The kitchen was remodeled by my dad’s mother. She
never got to enjoy it because she passed away soon after-
ward,” she said.
While the Lyons lived on the property, they hosted
numerous activities for the First Baptist Church of Aledo,
including church picnics and many 42 games and tourna-
ments with their friends. There is still a park on the prop-
erty where these activities were held. According to Fuqua,
“They did a lot of socializing, back in the day.”
The property is on the market and the family hopes
that someone will keep the acreage intact and use it as
a horse, cattle or farm property. The family has already
auctioned off much of the furniture and equipment from
the farm with the selling of the property to be the next
step.
“I’m going to miss everything about it. The creek, the
park and all of it. It was a fun place to come and be with
the animals,” said Fuqua. “We’d love for someone to
keep it as farmland, but you never know what’s going to
happen.”