Pleasant Valley Farmers' Alliance No. 1 was the first chapter of the Farmers' Alliance in Texas. Founded in 1877, it became one of the strongest arms of the national agrarian reform movement of the era. The group was begun by John R. Allen on Donaldson Creek, one mile south, in a "rawhide" rough lumber school. Its main purpose was to improve ruinous farm living and economic conditions. Missing livestock were traced by two secret officers known as "Grand Smokies." In 1887, the three thousand sub-alliances merged with the "Farmers' Union," then helped spark the Populist Party drive of the 1890's, but by 1900 they had died out.