High Plains Pioneer Henry Clay Smith
Crosbyton, Crosby County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1836 - 1912) First to set up a post office and to farm in Crosby County; first to break land and drill a water well on High Plains. At start of Civil War, he was miner at Pinos Altos, New Mexico and joined in moves to take gold and silver mines for South. But Indian raids closed mines. When the Confederate Army withdrew from Arizona and Mexico in 1861, Smith along with others joined the South's cause. Served four years in Texas and spent rest of his life here. Replica of old rock house he built near here in 1877 is now shown in museum at Crosbyton. (1965)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Henry Clay Smith was a true High Plains pioneer — the first to open a post office, farm, break land, and drill a water well in Crosby County. When the Civil War began he was mining at Pinos Altos, New Mexico, and joined efforts to seize the gold and silver mines for the Confederacy until Indian raids and the Confederate withdrawal in 1861 closed them down. He served four years for the South and spent the rest of his life on the plains, building a rock house in 1877 now replicated in a Crosbyton museum.
Why it matters
Smith's life links the Civil War's far-western mining frontier to the pioneering settlement of the Texas High Plains.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Henry Clay Smith
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Lubbock County
Lubbock, TX
Created in 1876 and organized in 1891, Lubbock County honors Colonel Thomas S. Lubbock (1817-1862), a soldier of the Texas Revolution and Republic. Lubbock marched with the New Orleans Greys at the storming of Bexar, joined the ill-fated Santa Fe and Somervell expeditions, and in 1861 helped organize the famous Terry's Texas Rangers before his death. The county he named became the anchor of the South Plains.
Crosby County
Crosbyton, TX
This state monument honors Henry Clay Smith — "Uncle Hank" — a German-born pioneer who, with his wife Elizabeth, built the famed Rock House in 1877 and became a byword for frontier hospitality on the Texas Plains. The couple settled at Old Emma above the Cap Rock, an escarpment marking the edge of the high plains, and the State of Texas raised this memorial to them in 1936. They lie buried near the home that made their name.
Crosbyton
Crosbyton, TX
Crosbyton sprang up in 1908 on the ranch lands of the C.B. Livestock Company, which deliberately built a school, store, railroad, and inn to lure homesteaders onto the West Texas plains. The strategy worked: by 1911 the town claimed a thousand residents and the county seat. Once open range, the surrounding country became rich irrigated farmland.
Crosby County
Crosbyton, TX
Crosby County was created in 1876 from the Young and Bexar territories and organized a decade later in 1886, taking its name from Stephen Crosby, a Commissioner of the General Land Office who came to Texas in 1845. Its county seat migrated across the plains from Estacado in 1886 to Emma in 1890 before settling in Crosbyton in 1911. The shifting seat traces the slow settlement of the West Texas high plains.