John R. ("Sarge") Nasworthy
San Angelo, Tom Green County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Colorful pioneer and Texas ranger who helped to create civilization and institutions of West Texas. Owned ranch land on which today is situated Lake Nasworthy -- first conservation lake in this area. Born in Georgia. Served 1864-1865 in Confederate army, during Civil War. Later came to Texas, living first at Bonham. After he moved west, he operated in Menard area as a buyer of beef cattle for United States army mess halls at Fort Concho. In 1880s he was deputy county clerk and deputy sheriff of Tom Green County and the first treasurer of the city of San Angelo. He owned the first local brick kiln, a wagon yard, a livery stable, and the only hearse in town in the early days. He was second man to fence land, second man to grow cotton in the county. A county commissioner, 1910-1916, he promoted building of the old Chadbourne viaduct. A leader in church and philanthropic endeavors, he was a promoter of the Baptist encampment at Christoval (then one of the largest religious gatherings in the south). He married Dena Von Fisher. The family had homes on Beauregard Street, Knickerbocker Road, Ben Ficklin Road and at Nasworthy Lake site. His six children carry on family tradition of community leadership.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born in Georgia and a Confederate soldier in the closing years of the Civil War, John R. "Sarge" Nasworthy came west to Texas and helped build the institutions of a raw frontier region around San Angelo. He bought beef for the army mess halls at Fort Concho, served as deputy county clerk and sheriff and the city's first treasurer, and ran the town's first brick kiln, wagon yard, and livery stable. A county commissioner who promoted an early viaduct and a major Baptist encampment, he left his name on Lake Nasworthy, the area's first conservation lake, built on land he once owned.
Why it matters
Nasworthy's many roles—rancher, lawman, builder, and civic promoter—trace how a single restless frontiersman helped knit West Texas into settled towns and institutions.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John R. "Sarge" Nasworthy
- · Dena Von Fisher
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Major Ben Ficklin, C.S.A.
San Angelo, TX
Dubbed the "Mystery Man of the Confederacy," Ben Ficklin packed extraordinary adventure into 44 years: a corporal in the Mexican War at 18, a pioneer of Western stagecoach and mail lines, a founder of the Pony Express in 1860, and an early promoter of the transcontinental railroad. During the Civil War he ran Union blockades as a Confederate purchasing agent, and afterward won a U.S. mail contract, headquartering near Fort Concho—until he died in 1871 from swallowing a fish bone. A town later named for him became Tom Green County's first seat until an 1882 flood destroyed it.
Reagan County
Big Lake, TX
Reagan County was carved from Tom Green County and organized in 1903 as ranching and, later, oil pushed settlement across the West Texas plains. It honors John H. Reagan (1818-1905), an Indian fighter, surveyor, and long-serving Texas congressman who became Postmaster General of the Confederacy and later a founding force of the Texas Railroad Commission. The county seat moved from Stiles to Big Lake in 1925.
Coleman County
Coleman, TX
Coleman County occupies land where Apache, Comanche, and Kiowa people once camped and kept lookouts from its hills. White settlement began in 1857 around Camp Colorado, a U.S. 2nd Cavalry post on Jim Ned Creek; the county was created in 1858 and named for Robert M. Coleman, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and San Jacinto veteran. In 1862 cattleman John Chisum arrived to raise beef for Confederate troops, and the county formally organized in 1864.
Wooten Cemetery
Telegraph, TX
Like many Hill Country burial grounds, Wooten Cemetery began with a single sorrow—the 1880 grave of one-year-old Cornelius Clay Jackson, whose headstone remains its oldest. His mother followed the next year, and among the graves lies a family thought to have died of tuberculosis, a reminder of frontier medicine's limits. The cemetery takes its name from Simon Lee Wooten, a Civil War veteran who came to Texas from Georgia "upon the death of the Old South."