R.F. Tankersley Homestead
Veribest, Tom Green County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Richard Franklin Tankersley was born June 23, 1828, in Georgia and married Annie Allen of Aberdeen, Mississippi, in 1848. They moved to Texas and in 1864 established a home as ranchers on Spring Creek. Soon land in the area began to be sold for settlements, dividing the open land where free-range cattle grazed. Tankersley purchased 960 acres east of San Angelo on Main Concho River from Samuel Maverick's widow, Mary, for 960 gold dollars. The property originated with the Fisher-Miller Colony on August 28, 1851, and changed hands multiple times until it was eventually sold along with many other properties to Maverick in 1860. R.F. Tankersley built this rock house with locally quarried rock. No cement was available at the time, but a combination of limestone, gravel and buffalo hair made a plaster that has lasted for more than 135 years. Oxen carried doors, oak flooring and handmade square nails from San Antonio to the Concho River. Gun ports were placed in the rock walls and there was a high rock fence around the house for protection. The home's construction is very similar to Fort Concho, which was built around the same time, with large cornerstones and sold stone lintels. It is thought that some of the same German stonemasons who built the fort may have constructed the house. The Tankersleys homesteaded on the property until their marriage ended in divorce in 1878. The property had several owners over the years before it was sold to J. Willis Johnson in 1900 and kept in the family for 84 years. The R.F. Tankersley Homestead is thought to be the oldest home still standing in the Concho Valley. The property was designated a State Antiquities Landmark in 2016. Recorded Texas Historic Landmark - 2017
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Georgia-born Richard Franklin Tankersley brought his family to Texas and in 1864 established a ranch on Spring Creek, later buying nearly a thousand acres of the Concho Valley from the widow of Samuel Maverick. He built this rock house from locally quarried stone, its walls plastered with a mix of limestone, gravel and buffalo hair and pierced with gun ports for defense—so like nearby Fort Concho that the same German stonemasons may have built both. Thought to be the oldest surviving home in the Concho Valley, it still stands after more than 135 years.
Why it matters
The fortified homestead embodies the dangers and determination of ranching Texas's western frontier in the era of open range and the last Indian conflicts.
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Related people
- · Richard Franklin Tankersley
- · Mary Maverick
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mullins Cemetery
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This cemetery honors Isaac Mullins, a Virginia-born pioneer who came to the Republic of Texas in 1837 and helped organize Tom Green County, serving on its first commission and in the state legislature. His "IC" cattle brand became one of the most famous in Texas as he trailed herds to markets as far as California, and in the 1860s he captained a company of Texas Rangers. He gave land for a school and deeded this site as a cemetery in 1881, where he lies among Civil War veterans and pioneers of the old Mullins community.
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Established in 1867 by the 4th Cavalry at a junction of the Butterfield and Goodnight trails, Fort Concho anchored a line of forts guarding the Texas frontier from northeastern Texas to El Paso. Its sandstone barracks, hospital, and officers' quarters housed a remarkable roster of commanders, including Ranald Mackenzie, who led campaigns against Native resistance, and Benjamin Grierson, commander of the Black "buffalo soldiers" of the 10th Cavalry. The Army abandoned the post in 1889 and it passed into private hands.
The Tenth Cavalry
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After the Civil War, Congress authorized six regiments of Black soldiers, and in 1867 the Tenth Cavalry organized under Colonel Benjamin Grierson. Reassigned west to escape discrimination at Fort Leavenworth, the regiment reached Fort Concho in 1875, where its troopers endured grueling scouting and mapping expeditions across the high plains. They played a key role in the 1880 defeat of the Mescalero Apache leader Victorio before moving on to Fort Davis and, in later generations, service around the world.
Sacred Heart Catholic Church
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Catholic priests had visited the Concho River country since the 1600s, but a lasting church took root only after Fort Concho's 1867 founding, when Father Mathurin Pairier began caring for the soldiers and settlers of the frontier. On land donated in 1874 by San Angelo promoter Bart DeWitt, he completed the town's first church building in 1884, serving a mingled congregation of Mexican, English, Irish, and German Catholics soon joined by teaching Sisters of Charity. Rebuilt as Sacred Heart in 1906, it became the cathedral of the new Diocese of San Angelo in 1961 and remains the mother church of West Texas Catholicism.