James Azle Steward
Azle, Tarrant County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Tennessee native James Azle Steward came to Texas prior to 1860. He and his wife, Mary E. Fowler Steward, were among the early settlers of this area. Steward was a well-known, respected pioneer physician. The settlement, which had been known by several different names at various times, was renamed Azle when Dr. Steward gave land for a townsite in 1883. He was also instrumental in the establishment of Ash Creek Cemetery. Azle Christian Church was built on land donated by the Doctor. A Mason, he was buried in Ash Creek Cemetery.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A Tennessee-born physician, James Azle Steward reached this part of North Texas before 1860 and became one of its most respected pioneers. When he donated land for a townsite in 1883, the settlement — which had gone by several names — took his middle name and became Azle. He also gave ground for Ash Creek Cemetery and the Azle Christian Church, weaving himself into the community's civic and spiritual life.
Why it matters
Azle's story is the classic Texas pattern of a single pioneer doctor whose land gifts founded a town, its churches, and its institutions.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
Before the Civil War, North Texas was frontier country. Tarrant County lay at the edge of settlement, and the land northwest of Fort Worth was a mix of prairie and timbered creek bottoms. Families from Tennessee, Kentucky, and other southern states moved west looking for cheap land and a fresh start, and many of them settled along creeks like this one.
Life on that frontier was rough and spread out. A settlement might be little more than a few farms, a church meeting, and a burial ground. Places often changed names as new families came, post offices opened and closed, or one leading citizen made his mark. That is why many small Texas towns went through several names before one stuck.
In the years after the Civil War, North Texas grew quickly. More settlers came, farms spread, and a scattered community needed something solid to grow around, like a townsite, a church, or a cemetery. In many places, as here, those came from a single landowner willing to give ground for the common good.
A country doctor mattered a great deal in that world. Hospitals were far away and travel was slow, so the local physician was often the most trusted person in the community. He rode out to farms in every kind of weather and was present at births, illnesses, and deaths.
People & events
James Azle Steward was born in Tennessee and came to Texas sometime before 1860. He and his wife, Mary E. Fowler Steward, were among the early settlers of this area. He worked as a physician, and the marker remembers him as a well-known and respected one, the kind of frontier doctor that families for miles around depended on.
His biggest mark on the map came in 1883. The settlement had gone by several names over the years, and when Dr. Steward gave land for a townsite, it took a new one: Azle, his own middle name. A doctor's middle name has been the town's name ever since.
His giving did not end with the townsite. He was instrumental in founding Ash Creek Cemetery, where the community buried its dead, and Azle Christian Church was built on land he donated. A townsite, a churchyard, and a burial ground were the basic institutions of a frontier community, and he helped provide all three.
Dr. Steward was a Mason, a member of the fraternal order that played a big part in civic life in nineteenth-century Texas towns. When he died, he was buried in Ash Creek Cemetery, the place he had helped establish. Mary Steward stands beside him in the record as one of the founding settlers. Her story deserves remembering too, even though the marker says less about it.
Its place in the American story
The story of Azle is the story of hundreds of American towns. Across the country, communities formed around one landowner who set aside ground for a townsite, a church, or a cemetery. Those gifts turned scattered farms into a place with a center, and very often the town took that person's name.
The country doctor is one of the classic figures of the American frontier. In a time before modern medicine and easy travel, a physician like Dr. Steward was often the only medical help a family could reach. Communities trusted and respected such doctors, and they often became civic leaders as well, as he did.
The Steward story also follows a familiar route of migration. Tennessee and other states of the upper South sent huge numbers of settlers west to Texas in the mid-1800s, and they carried their churches, their fraternal lodges, and their ways of life with them. Azle grew out of that movement.
So a marker about one doctor in Tarrant County is really about how ordinary American towns came into being: through the generosity and commitment of individual settlers who decided to build something lasting where they lived.
If you visit
Azle lies northwest of Fort Worth, where the city's suburbs give way to the rolling, wooded country of the Cross Timbers. When you're here, remember that the whole town is named for the man on this marker. Every Azle sign you passed on the way in is a small tribute to a country doctor.
Look out for the places the marker names. Ash Creek Cemetery and Azle Christian Church both grew out of land Dr. Steward helped provide. Wherever you visit, treat old cemeteries respectfully: keep to the paths and leave the stones and grave goods as you find them.
This is a gentle stop that fits easily into a drive west out of the Fort Worth area, or a day spent around the lakes northwest of the city. Combine it with a visit to Fort Worth's history attractions for a day about how frontier North Texas grew from outposts and farms into towns.
If you're traveling with kids, ask them a question: what would our town be called if it were named for one of our neighbors? It's an easy way to show that the names on a map belonged to real people.
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
- · James Azle Steward
- · Mary E. Fowler Steward
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
First Methodist Church of Azle
Azle, TX
The Rev. Will A. Stephens and fifteen charter members organized this Methodist congregation in 1895, buying a building from the United Brethren Church and securing a parsonage. The church called its first full-time minister in 1942, and membership more than doubled by 1946, prompting a new education building and a brick sanctuary. A 1968 denominational merger gave it the name First United Methodist Church.
Ash Creek Baptist Church
Azle, TX
On September 9, 1871, the Rev. J.C. Powers gathered 48 charter members to organize the Ash Creek Missionary Baptist Church on the still-dangerous Texas frontier, where he was said to preach with a gun beside his Bible while men kept rifles across their knees. A meeting house rose here in 1891, and in summers the congregation built brush arbors for prayer meetings on the grounds. The women famously set aside every egg laid on Sundays to fund Sunday school literature.
Azle Schools
Azle, TX
By local tradition, schooling in the Azle area began in the 1850s in log cabins and a Baptist church, persisting despite the disruptions of frontier raids and the Civil War. Over the decades the school grew by absorbing a string of tiny neighboring districts with names like Promised Land, Liberty, and Bluff Springs. That steady consolidation turned scattered pioneer schools into a single modern district.
Ash Creek Cemetery
Azle, TX
The oldest known graves in this Azle burial ground belong to Dave Morrison and W. P. Gregg, both of whom died in 1874. The land was given in two one-acre parcels by Dr. James Azle Stewart, for whom the town of Azle is named, and by John Giles Reynolds, an early grist mill operator, and both men are buried here. A cemetery association formed in 1922 to keep records and care for the grounds, later adding land and a tabernacle, and the cemetery now holds more than 2,000 graves.