Andrews County
Frankel City, Andrews County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Created August 21, 1876. Organized May 11, 1910. Named for Richard Andrews killed at the Battle of Concepcion, October 28, 1835, the first man to fall in the Texas revolution. County seat, Andrews.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Andrews County was created by the Texas legislature in 1876 and finally organized in 1910, its wide plains among the last parts of Texas to be settled. It honors Richard Andrews, remembered as the first man to fall in the Texas Revolution, killed at the Battle of Concepción near San Antonio on October 28, 1835. His name carried into the far West Texas frontier the memory of the fight for Texas independence.
Why it matters
The marker links the West Texas frontier to the very first casualty of the Texas Revolution, showing how the state stitched the memory of its founding struggle into the map as settlement pushed westward.
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Related people
- · Richard Andrews
Related events
- · Battle of Concepcion
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fairview Cemetery
Midland, TX
In use by the spring of 1885, this ten-acre burial ground was accepted as a gift from the Midland Town Company at the newly organized county's first commissioners' meeting that August. Among the pioneers laid to rest here are veterans of both the Mexican War and the Civil War, men whose lives spanned the mid-century conflicts before they helped settle the West Texas plains.
Dawson County
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Dawson County honors Nicholas Mosby Dawson, a Texas patriot who fought at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto in 1836 and later fell in the 1842 clash known as Dawson's Massacre during the turbulent years of the Republic of Texas. The county was created in 1858, recreated in 1876 from Bexar Territory, and finally organized in 1905, with Lamesa as its seat. Its name carries the memory of the sacrifices that won and defended Texas independence.
Whalen Lake School
Frankel City, TX
Two miles south of this spot, one of Andrews County's first schools opened in 1907 on land donated by Mrs. M. B. Dillard, near the edge of Whalen Lake. Built by Joe and Jake Mathis, the one-room school taught the children of homesteaders who were "proving up" their claims by living on the land for three years. It closed in 1910 and the building was moved once most settlers had fulfilled their claims and departed.
Irwin Ranch House
Andrews, TX
The Irwin Ranch House is the last building left of Shafter Lake, once the largest town in Andrews County and its first real settlement. Built in 1908, its frame is made of concrete blocks hand-pressed from sand taken straight out of the dry lakebed. When the town faded, this lone structure remained to mark where a West Texas boomlet had briefly stood.