Captain Will Wright
Floresville, Wilson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1868-1942) Founding officer, Co. D, Texas Rangers. Had uncles, brother, sons in Rangers and Border Patrol. Wilson County deputy sheriff, 1896-1900; sheriff, 1902-1917. While in office reared his family in the jailer's quarters. Always was armed. A stern leader, but gentlemanly and kind. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Will Wright (1868–1942) was a founding officer of Company D of the Texas Rangers, part of a family threaded through the Rangers and the Border Patrol. Before that he served Wilson County as deputy sheriff and then sheriff from 1902 to 1917, raising his family in the jailer's quarters while in office. Remembered as always armed and a stern but gentlemanly leader, he embodied the lawman of the South Texas borderlands.
Why it matters
Wright's career spans the transition from frontier ranging to modern border law enforcement, a lineage that shaped policing along the Texas–Mexico line.
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Related people
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Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
The Flores de Abrego Family and Floresville
Floresville, TX
The Flores de Abrego family came from northern Spain before the American Revolution and, through the eighteenth century, drove their cattle north to establish ranches along the San Antonio River. Grandsons of the family fought on the Texian side in the revolution against Mexico, and in 1854 Josefa Agustina Flores de Abrego married Samuel William Barker, who became Wilson County's first sheriff. In 1867 Josefa donated 200 acres for the new county seat, asking that it be named Floresville in honor of her ancestor Francisco Antonio Flores de Abrego II.
Wilson County Courthouse
Floresville, TX
Completed in 1884, this Italianate courthouse replaced an earlier building raised soon after Floresville became the Wilson County seat in 1871. It came from the drafting table of noted San Antonio architect Alfred Giles and was built with bricks fired in a local yard. Its Doric-columned entry pavilions, bracketed cornice, and central steepled tower marked it as the civic centerpiece of the county.
Wilson County
Floresville, TX
Wilson County was created and organized in 1860 and named for James Charles Wilson (1816–1861), a veteran of the Republic of Texas's Mier Expedition into Mexico. Wilson went on to serve as a district clerk in Brazoria County and as a state senator representing Matagorda County. Floresville became the county seat.
James Charles Wilson
Floresville, TX
When Wilson County was organized in 1860 it honored James Charles Wilson, an Englishman who left home in 1836 and remade himself as a Texan lawyer, editor, and legislator. Captured during the ill-fated 1842 Mier Expedition, he escaped a Mexican prison in 1843, then built a career spanning the press, the bench, the Texas Senate, and the delicate work of settling Spanish- and Mexican-era land claims. He closed his life near Gonzales, licensed to preach, and now rests in the State Cemetery in Austin.