The Texas Department of Transportation’s Archaeology Program upholds the State’s National Historic Preservation Act obligations while managing cultural resources on highway projects. Archaeological work in advance of construction along FM 455 in north Texas resulted in data recovery excavations on two late nineteenth-century sites significant to the small frontier community of Bolivar. The Sartin Hotel was a two-story wood-frame hotel serving stagecoach travelers and cattlemen working the nearby Old Chisholm Trail, and the Tom Cook blacksmith shop was owned and operated by Tom Cook, a formerly enslaved African American man, minister, and prominent local civil rights leader. The Bolivar Archeological Project serves as an ideal example of community archeology, effectively involving local stakeholders and descendant communities at all stages of the research. In this presentation I discuss TxDOT’s leadership in the Bolivar Archeological Project and introduce participants in this session.

Bolivar, born from small settlements and the establishment of the Chisholm Trail, developed rapidly as a commercial center in northwest Denton County in the pre-railroad era. As the town thrived, freed Black families settled in the community. Of focus is blacksmith Tom Cook and his family. This paper explores settlement, community development, social institutions, commercial establishments, and transportation patterns that defined Bolivar in the second half of the nineteenth century, and the intersection of these themes with the Cook family. By the close of the nineteenth century, Black Texans began to move to larger towns for jobs, better education, and safety. Bolivar’s Black community dwindled as economic opportunities and resources declined because of the disuse of the Chisholm Trail and construction of the railroad through nearby Sanger. The paper follows the Cook family through this transition and concludes with a historic research methodology that considers primary and secondary sources.

This paper explores the archaeology of blacksmithing through examining the Tom Cook Blacksmith Shop with excavations yielding more than 25,000 artifacts. Located along the Chisholm Trail and belonging to Tom Cook, an African American freedman, the archaeological assemblage of the blacksmith shop offers insight into life and blacksmithing along the Texas frontier. Once ubiquitous, blacksmiths and their associated archaeological assemblages embody the historical processes of craft and industry. Bridging the craft and archaeology of blacksmithing, this study involves collaboration with professional blacksmiths and stakeholder communities. Building on foundational research and the Tom Cook archaeological assemblage, this research addresses how to archaeologically identify blacksmithing, types of archaeological evidence, layout of a blacksmith shop and the different methods and approaches. An archaeology of blacksmithing offers multiple scales of resolution, from identifying the individual signature of a blacksmith to the range of materials and spheres of activities of broader regional contexts.

The Bolivar blacksmith named Tom Cook was not an anomaly. His life and career are representative of a widespread pattern of formerly enslaved blacksmiths who, upon emancipation, became businessmen, landowners, and leaders in their communities and churches. Their skills in blacksmithing and communication enabled them to succeed in business and many other endeavors, and some became prominent political leaders in the Texas legislature. While a few prominent African American blacksmiths in Texas are widely known, there are many more whose stories remain obscure and await rediscovery. The past 180 years has been an amazing journey for the Cook family, and this is a classic “undertold story” in Texas’ history. The Bolivar Archaeological Project highlights the meaningful contributions that CRM archaeology can make to African diaspora studies and local communities.