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.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
When John R. Nasworthy came west to Texas, the country around what would become San Angelo was still raw frontier. The Civil War had ended, and men who had worn Confederate gray were scattering across a defeated South looking for a fresh start. For many of them, the answer lay out on the open range of West Texas, where the grass ran to the horizon and a person willing to work could still make a life from almost nothing.
The anchor of this particular corner of the frontier was Fort Concho, a U.S. Army post established after the war where three branches of the Concho River meet. The fort brought soldiers, and soldiers had to be fed, housed, and supplied. Around that steady demand a rough settlement grew, and out of that settlement grew a town. This was the world Nasworthy stepped into — a place still deciding whether it would be a permanent home or just another spot on the map that faded once the army moved on.
It was an era of transformation across the whole region: the open cattle range was beginning to give way to fenced pasture, dry-land farming was being tested against a demanding climate, and the institutions of settled life — churches, county offices, schools, and public works — were being built from scratch by whoever was willing to build them.
People & events
Born in Georgia and a soldier for the Confederacy in the war's final year, Nasworthy arrived in Texas by way of the town of Bonham before drifting west, where the real story of his life began. He first made his living in the cattle trade, buying beef around the Menard country to feed the mess halls at Fort Concho — a job that put him at the center of the frontier economy, where the army's appetite turned ranchers' herds into cash.
What sets him apart is how many hats he wore once the town took root. He served as deputy county clerk and deputy sheriff of Tom Green County and became the first treasurer of the city of San Angelo — the kind of ground-floor public offices that only exist because someone steps up to fill them. He was also a relentless builder of the ordinary machinery of town life: the first local brick kiln, a wagon yard, a livery stable, and, memorably, the only hearse in town in those early days. He was among the very first in the county to fence his land and to grow cotton, small facts that mark the exact moment a frontier tips over into farm country.
Later, as a county commissioner in the 1910s, he pushed for the building of the old Chadbourne viaduct and championed the Baptist encampment at Christoval, at the time one of the largest religious gatherings in the South. He married Dena Von Fisher, raised a family with homes scattered across the growing town and out at the lake site, and left children who carried on his habit of civic leadership.
Its place in the American story
Nasworthy's crowded résumé is really the story of how the American West got settled — not by a single dramatic event, but by countless people quietly doing whatever the moment required. The classic image of the frontier is the lone cowboy or the cavalry troop, but towns were actually built by men like this one, who could sell cattle in the morning, serve a legal writ in the afternoon, and lobby for a bridge at the next commissioners' meeting.
His life also traces one of the great arcs of nineteenth-century America: the reunification of the country after the Civil War. A Georgia-born Confederate veteran became a founding pillar of a Texas city, his energies turned entirely toward building rather than fighting. Multiply that story across thousands of veterans who moved west, and you have much of how the postwar nation knit itself back together and pushed its settled frontier toward the setting sun.
There is a fitting epilogue in the landscape itself. His name lives on at Lake Nasworthy, described as the first conservation lake in the area, built on land he once owned. The move from open range to fenced ranch to a managed reservoir captures in miniature how Americans reshaped the arid West — first claiming it, then farming it, and finally engineering it to store the water that made permanent life there possible.
If you visit
San Angelo sits in the Concho Valley, and this marker rewards a traveler who likes to read a whole town out of a single life. Stand at the marker and you are essentially reading the founding directory of the community — the offices, the businesses, the public works that one person had a hand in. It turns an ordinary West Texas cityscape into a layered historical map.
Make it part of a Concho Valley loop. Fort Concho, the old military post whose supply needs drew men like Nasworthy here in the first place, is preserved in San Angelo and gives you the 'before' picture — the frontier garrison that the town grew up beside. From the fort to the modern city, you can trace the same transformation the marker describes.
Then drive out to Lake Nasworthy on the edge of town. Knowing that the water you are looking at covers land once owned by the marker's subject — and that it was among the first efforts to store and conserve water in this dry country — gives an ordinary recreation lake a quiet weight. It is a good reminder that in West Texas, even the scenery is something somebody built.
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
- · John R. "Sarge" Nasworthy
- · Dena Von Fisher
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Major Ben Ficklin, C.S.A.
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