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.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
The Concho Valley of West Texas, where the Concho River winds through rolling limestone country near present-day San Angelo, was a dangerous and thinly settled frontier in the years during and after the Civil War. This was the edge of the open range, where free-roaming cattle grazed unfenced land and the presence of the U.S. Army was one of the few sources of security for newcomers.
It was into this contested country that Richard Franklin Tankersley brought his family. Born in Georgia in 1828 and married to Annie Allen in 1848, he moved to Texas and, in 1864, established a ranching home on Spring Creek — putting down roots on a frontier still shaped by conflict and by the last years of open-range cattle grazing.
Soon the pattern that transformed the West arrived here too: land in the area began to be sold off for settlement, dividing the open ranges where cattle had roamed free. The frontier was closing, parcel by parcel, and ranchers had to buy and hold the ground they had once simply used.
People & events
Tankersley's story is written into the land he acquired. He purchased 960 acres east of San Angelo along the Main Concho River — famously for 960 gold dollars, a dollar an acre — from Mary, the widow of Samuel Maverick. That tract carried a long history of its own, originating with the Fisher-Miller Colony in 1851 and passing through several hands before Maverick assembled it in 1860.
On this ground Tankersley built a rock house from locally quarried stone. With no cement available, he improvised a plaster of limestone, gravel, and buffalo hair — a mixture that has held for more than 135 years. Oxen hauled the doors, oak flooring, and handmade square nails all the way from San Antonio. This was no ordinary farmhouse: gun ports pierced the rock walls and a high rock fence encircled the home, defenses against the dangers of the frontier.
The construction so closely resembles nearby Fort Concho — large cornerstones, solid stone lintels — that it is thought some of the same German stonemasons who raised the fort may have built the house. The Tankersleys homesteaded here until their marriage ended in divorce in 1878. The property changed hands over the years, was sold to J. Willis Johnson in 1900 and kept in that family for eighty-four years, and today is regarded as the oldest home still standing in the Concho Valley — a State Antiquities Landmark and Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.
Its place in the American story
This fortified rock house is a tangible record of the American frontier at its most raw and transitional. The gun ports and the surrounding stone wall speak plainly to a time when a family's home had to double as a place of defense on the western edge of settlement, during the era of open range and the last conflicts on the plains.
It also captures the great shift that closed the frontier everywhere in the West: the moment when open, unfenced land where cattle grazed freely gave way to bought, bounded, privately owned property. Tankersley's dollar-an-acre purchase and the fences that followed were the frontier turning into permanent settlement, one deed at a time.
And in its very stones, the house preserves the labor of the immigrant craftsmen who built the West. The likelihood that German stonemasons who raised Fort Concho also shaped this home ties a private ranch to the military architecture that made settlement possible — a reminder that the West was built by many hands, many of them newly arrived from across the ocean.
If you visit
You're in ranching country near Veribest, east of San Angelo in the Concho Valley — big-sky West Texas, where limestone and river define the landscape. The house you've come to see is believed to be the oldest still standing in the whole valley, and it wears its age with remarkable solidity.
Get close to the walls and look for the details the marker describes: the gun ports set into the rock, the massive cornerstones, the solid stone lintels above the openings. Then remember what holds it all together — a plaster mixed from limestone, gravel, and buffalo hair, still sound after more than 135 years. Compare its heavy masonry in your mind's eye to nearby Fort Concho, and you'll understand why people suspect the same German stonemasons shaped both.
This is a rewarding stop for anyone exploring frontier and military history around San Angelo. Standing before this quiet, fortress-like home, you can feel how much determination — and how much fear — went into building a life here. It is a survivor from the very edge of settled America, and it has outlasted nearly everything around it.
Written by AI to add context, grounded in the marker’s inscription and the historical record. The inscription above is the original, unaltered text.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Richard Franklin Tankersley
- · Mary Maverick
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Mullins Cemetery
San Angelo, TX
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.
Fort Concho
San Angelo, TX
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
San Angelo, TX
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
San Angelo, TX
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.