Major Ben Ficklin, C.S.A.
San Angelo, Tom Green County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1827-1871) Called Mystery Man of the Confederacy. Educated at Virginia Military Institute. At age 18 served as a corporal in Mexican War. In 1850's worked with stagecoach and mail lines from Missouri to San Francisco. Helped to start the Pony Express Line in 1860. Promoted idea of the railroad that later was the Union Pacific-- the first to span the U.S. Was a soldier and state quartermaster in Virginia at start of Civil War. Appointed Confederate purchasing agent, his swagger and success in Europe excited Federal envy. Personally ran blockade and passed through New York and Washington on secret missions. In 1867 was awarded U.S. contract for weekly mail run from Fort Smith, Ark., to San Antonio and El Paso. Had his operational headquarters 3 miles below Fort Concho. Owned 640 acres of land here. Built corrals, blacksmith shop, storage rooms, adobe house, kitchen and commissary. On a visit to Washington, died of swallowing fish bone. Was buried in Charlottesville,Va. Associates carried on the mail stage runs, later named town near Fort Concho for the late Major. "Benficklin" was first county seat of Tom Green, serving until it was destroyed by flood in 1882. (1965)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
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.
Why it matters
Ficklin's career spans the great arteries of 19th-century American communication and expansion, from the Pony Express to the transcontinental railroad.
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Related people
- · Ben Ficklin
Related events
- · Pony Express
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Tom Green County
San Angelo, TX
Carved from the old Miller and Fisher land grant, Tom Green County was created in 1874 and organized the following year, taking its name from General Thomas Green, a San Jacinto veteran and Confederate officer killed in 1864. The first transcontinental mail routes had already converged nearby in 1858. The county seat began at Ben Ficklin in 1875 before shifting to San Angelo in 1882.
Ben Ficklin Cemetery
San Angelo, TX
When a catastrophic flood swept away the town of Ben Ficklin on August 24, 1882, it inundated the settlement's cemetery and exposed many graves. Charles B. Metcalfe chose this higher ground to reinter his relatives—including Col. Francis C. Taylor, the town's founder—and to bury his mother, sister, and uncle among the flood's victims. The site became the resting place of many Tom Green County pioneers, in a village and cemetery named for Ben Ficklin, owner of the San Antonio–El Paso mail line.
Site of Ben Ficklin
San Angelo, TX
Ben Ficklin began as a stage stand named for the frontiersman and mail contractor Major Ben Ficklin, who helped organize the Pony Express and once carried the first message from California's governor to Missouri's. From 1875 it served as the first county seat of Tom Green County, until a catastrophic flood swept it away on August 24, 1882. The county seat then moved to San Angelo.
John R. ("Sarge") Nasworthy
San Angelo, TX
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.