Colonel Lewis Given Harman was typical of those who served the South and then moved into the new counties of western Texas. Born in Tennessee, he moved to Texas in 1838 and served as a surveyor, Indian agent, soldier, legislator, and justice of the peace. He fought in the Mexican War, and although he was 43 when the Civil War began, he immediately joined the 11th Texas Cavalry in the swift 1861 campaign to place Confederate forts in Indian Territory. He was post commander at Fort Arbuckle, I.T., from June to August 1861. After Marathon was founded in 1882, he became a civic leader there and later had the town's first Masonic funeral.