County's First Law Men
Snyder, Scurry County, Texas
Marker Inscription
First sheriff elected when the county was organized, 1884, was W. W. "Uncle Billy" Nelson. He authorized the first "Calaboose" (jail)--a frame structure only 8x10x8 feet. Uncle Billy resigned; however, after 6 months; cowboys were an unruly lot. T. J. Faught was next appointed sheriff, 1885. He gained respect of cowhands when, using a wooden pool cue as a weapon, he calmed a rowdy group in the west side saloon. Faught never wore a gun; was elected 3 terms, 1886-1892. In original Snyder town plat, a street was named for Sheriff Faught; it is now 27th Street. (1967)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Scurry County organized in 1884, W. W. 'Uncle Billy' Nelson became its first sheriff and authorized a tiny 8-by-10-foot frame 'calaboose' for a jail — but he resigned after six months, worn down by unruly cowboys. His successor, T. J. Faught, won the cowhands' respect by quieting a rowdy saloon crowd with a wooden pool cue and, though he never wore a gun, served three terms from 1886 to 1892. A street in the original Snyder town plat was named for him, now 27th Street.
Why it matters
It captures the improvised, personality-driven frontier justice that tamed West Texas cattle towns in the closing years of the open range.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
In the early 1880s, the rolling plains of West Texas were changing fast. The great buffalo herds had been largely wiped out in the preceding years, and the Plains peoples who had depended on them had been forced onto reservations. Cattlemen moved into the open grasslands, and small towns grew up to serve them.
Scurry County, named for a Confederate general from Texas, was organized in 1884. Snyder, its county seat, had its roots in a trading post from the buffalo-hunting days. Communities like this one sat right at the turn from open range to organized settlement: county government, courts, and law enforcement were arriving in a place that had managed without much of any of them.
The cowboys who worked the ranches were often young, far from home, and paid in bursts. When they came into town, the saloon was a natural gathering place, and trouble was never far behind. Any new county had to decide quickly how it would keep order.
What happened in Scurry County shows how much of that early law depended not on institutions but on the character of the individual person wearing the badge.
People & events
When the county organized in 1884, voters elected W. W. 'Uncle Billy' Nelson as the first sheriff. One of his early acts was to authorize the county's first jail, a frame 'calaboose' only eight feet by ten feet and eight feet high. It was hardly a fortress, but it was a start, and it shows how modest a new county's resources could be.
Uncle Billy did not last long. He resigned after about six months, and the marker gives the reason plainly: the cowboys were an unruly lot. Keeping the peace in a young cattle town was a hard, thankless job, and not everyone was suited to it.
T. J. Faught was appointed sheriff in 1885, and he took a very different approach. The story the county remembers is of a rowdy crowd in the west side saloon, which Faught calmed using nothing more than a wooden pool cue. That episode won him the cowhands' respect.
Remarkably, Faught never wore a gun. He was elected to three terms, serving from 1886 to 1892, which says a great deal about the trust he earned. The original town plat of Snyder even named a street for him, though today it goes by 27th Street.
Its place in the American story
Popular culture has taught Americans to picture Western lawmen as fast-draw gunfighters. Sheriff Faught's story offers a more interesting truth. In many frontier towns, order depended less on firepower than on nerve, judgment, and the respect a lawman could earn from the people he policed.
The story of Scurry County's first two sheriffs also shows how fragile early law enforcement could be. One sheriff quit within months, and a jail the size of a small shed was the best the county could manage. Across the American West, government often arrived in exactly this humble, improvised form before it grew into lasting institutions.
The county's founding fits into a larger national transformation. The end of the buffalo herds and the confinement of Plains peoples opened the Southern Plains to ranching and settlement, and hundreds of new counties and towns rose across the West in the late 19th century. Each one had to work out, person by person, what law and order would mean.
A street once named for a sheriff who carried no gun is a small but telling piece of how communities chose to remember the people who held them together.
If you visit
Stand at the marker and picture Snyder as a raw young cattle town: dusty streets, horses at the hitching rails, and cowboys riding in after long weeks on the range. It is easy to imagine the tension in a crowded saloon, and the moment a sheriff with no gun stepped in holding only a pool cue.
On your way around town, keep an eye out for 27th Street, the street once named for Sheriff Faught in the original town plat. It is a small detail, but it connects the modern town grid to the county's first years.
Snyder makes a good stop on a West Texas road trip across the rolling plains, where ranching country and small county seats still reflect their late-19th-century beginnings. Visiting several of these towns in a row gives you a feel for how the region was organized in just a few decades.
Take a moment to think about the scale of that first calaboose: eight by ten feet. Pace it out on the ground if you like. It is a vivid way to feel how small, and how personal, frontier law really was.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
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Related people
- · W. W. "Uncle Billy" Nelson
- · T. J. Faught
Themes & tags
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