Original Townsite of Andrews
Andrews, Andrews County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Founded when Andrews County was organized in 1910, on land owned by Robert Madison Means (b. 1878). With his father, J. S. Means, "Bob" Means began homesteading here in 1899 and organized an abstract company in 1909. When Andrews battled Shafter City to acquire county seat, Means donated lots to local cowboys so they could vote; helped win election. Married Atwood Wilder, 1910; was county clerk, 1918-1922; civic leader throughout life. Town has grown through many gifts of real estate and funds from Means, who retired after finding oil on his land in 1934. (1970)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Andrews County was organized in 1910, the new town of Andrews rose on land homesteaded by Robert Madison "Bob" Means, who had begun ranching the West Texas plains with his father in 1899. In a colorful county-seat fight against rival Shafter City, Means famously deeded town lots to local cowboys so they could register as voters and swing the election. He served as county clerk and gave land and money to the growing town for the rest of his life, retiring comfortably after oil was struck on his land in 1934.
Why it matters
The story captures how the far West Texas plains were settled and organized in the early 20th century—by homesteaders whose land gifts (and eventual oil wealth) literally built the towns that followed.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
At the turn of the twentieth century, the high, flat plains of far West Texas were among the last corners of the state still waiting to be settled. Ranching had come first, with big outfits running cattle across open grassland, but the land was dry, windswept and thinly peopled. Many counties on the map had been drawn decades earlier and existed mostly on paper, with no town, courthouse or local government of their own.
That began to change as homesteaders arrived. Texas offered its public lands to settlers willing to live on them and improve them, and families came out to try ranching and farming. Once enough people lived in a county, they could organize it: elect officials, pick a county seat and build a government. Andrews County crossed that line in 1910, and the town of Andrews was born with it.
The county took its name from Richard Andrews, remembered as the first Texian soldier killed in the Texas Revolution. That gave this young plains county a link to the state's founding story, even though the town itself belongs to a much later era, one of land offices, title abstracts, ballot boxes and, in time, oil.
People & events
The central figure here is Robert Madison Means, born in 1878 and known to everyone as Bob. In 1899 he and his father, J. S. Means, began homesteading on this land, years before there was a county government to speak of. A decade later Bob opened an abstract company. That was a practical business on a frontier where land titles were everything, because an abstract traces who has owned a piece of ground and makes it possible to buy, sell and borrow against it.
When Andrews County organized in 1910, the new town rose on Means land, and a contest followed right away. Andrews and a rival settlement, Shafter City, both wanted to be the county seat. Means is remembered for a clever and very frontier-style move: he donated town lots to local cowboys, which helped them qualify to vote. Their ballots helped Andrews win. It was a reminder that in these new counties, a few dozen voters could decide a town's whole future.
That same year, 1910, Means married Atwood Wilder. He went on to serve as county clerk from 1918 to 1922 and stayed a civic leader for the rest of his life. The marker credits much of the town's growth to his repeated gifts of land and money. Then in 1934 oil was found on his land. The rancher and title man who had helped build the town could finally retire.
Its place in the American story
The story of Andrews shows how the American West was settled in its final stage. This was not wagon trains and gold rushes. It was paperwork, homestead claims, county elections and individual landowners deciding where a town would go. Across the plains, fights over county seats were common and often heated, because the winner got the courthouse, the businesses and the future, while the loser often faded away.
The oil discovery ties this small town to one of the biggest economic stories of twentieth-century America. Andrews County sits in the Permian Basin, which became one of the most productive oil regions in the country. Discoveries like the one on Means's land helped turn quiet ranch counties into energy centers whose output fueled cars, factories and a growing national economy.
Means's story also shows how much one family could shape a place in that era. With no outside company or government planning the town, its streets, lots and public gifts came largely from a single homesteader's choices. That kind of personal town-building was common across the West, and few places show it as clearly as Andrews.
If you visit
Stand at the marker and picture the town as a blank stretch of plains. Before 1910 there was little here besides grass, sky and the Means homestead. Every street around you grew out of one family's land and decisions, which makes the original townsite a fitting place to think about how small towns actually begin.
Look for the wide, level horizon that defines this part of Texas, and for signs of the oil economy that followed. Pumpjacks and oilfield businesses are part of the landscape across the Permian Basin, and they are the direct heirs of that 1934 strike.
Andrews fits naturally into a drive across the West Texas plains and the Permian Basin. Pair it with other markers in the region about ranching, oil and county organization, and you will start to see the same pattern repeat: homesteaders, a county-seat race, and then the oil that changed everything.
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
- · Robert Madison Means
- · J. S. Means
- · Atwood Wilder Means
Related events
- · Organization of Andrews County (1910)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Early Settlers of Andrews County
Andrews, TX
Andrews County sat on one of Texas's last frontiers, where Anglo settlement lagged some sixty years behind the rest of the state because of Comanche resistance and a punishing scarcity of water. O. B. Holt filed the first land claim in 1886, and hardy families like the Cowdens and Peter Von Holebeke followed, but by 1900 the county still counted only 87 people and did not organize until 1910. Windmill pumps and drift fences finally made ranching workable on the dry plains, and the 1930 discovery of oil turned decades of stubborn endurance into sudden prosperity.
J. S. Means Ranch House
Andrews, TX
Built in 1900, this is among the oldest houses in Andrews County, raised at the exact point where four claimants' land sections met so each could satisfy the legal requirement to live on his claim. After the group proved up their claims, they sold to Mr. and Mrs. J. S. Means, who by 1904 held fourteen sections and kept adding land to build a thriving cattle ranch. The operation ran cattle even after oil fields spread across the range in the 1920s.
"C" Ranch House
Andrews, TX
Purchased in 1883 by Chicago meatpacker Nelson Morris, this was the first privately owned land in the Midland area, known then as the Chicago Ranch. It boasted the first wire fence and windmill in West Texas and, by the marker's account, one of the world's largest herds of Black Angus cattle. Its innovations helped open the arid plains to large-scale ranching.
Goldsmith
Goldsmith, TX
Goldsmith sprang to life as an oil field on June 14, 1935, when the discovery well gushed 1,140 barrels of crude a day and shacks and tents soon housed 350 people. First platted as Ector City by Harry L. Tucker in 1937 and later renamed for landowner C. A. Goldsmith, the boomtown quickly gained cafes, a hospital, movie theater, hotels, and a newspaper—though its lone bath was a 25-cent shower from an overhead tank. It endures today as a gas processing and distribution center.