Barnards of the Brazos Sculpture on Courthouse Square

Charles and Juana Cavasos Barnard founded the town of Glen Rose when they built the still-standing Barnard’s Mill on the banks of the Paluxy River just four blocks southwest of here. Charles and his older brother, George, had been Indian traders in Texas since the 1840s. George ransomed Juana as a captive from the Comanches, and then she and brother Charles fell in love and married. Charles and Juana, together with at least two enslaved Africans and two white employees, in 1861 constructed a grist mill around which the town of Glen Rose eventually grew. Selling the property to Tyler Calhoun Jordan in 1870, they retired to live at the site of one of the Barnard trading posts near Comanche Peak. In 2007 nationally-known local artist Robert Summers created this sculpture depicting the couple, with Juana’s horse, Pigeon.