Scurry County
Snyder, Scurry County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Formed from Young and Bexar territories; created August 21, 1876; organized June 28, 1884; named in honor of General William R. Scurry 1821-1864; member of the last Texas Congress; a distinguished officer in the Confederate Army; Snyder, the county seat. (1936)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Scurry County was created in 1876 from older Texas territories and organized in 1884, with Snyder as its seat. It honors General William R. Scurry, a member of the last Congress of the Republic of Texas and a Confederate officer killed in 1864. The county's founding was part of the steady organization of West Texas as settlement pushed onto the plains.
Why it matters
The county's creation and its namesake capture how post-Civil War Texas mapped its western frontier while memorializing the Confederate generation.
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Related people
- · William R. Scurry
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Handley Cemetery
Teville, TX
John J. Handley, a Confederate veteran who had lived in Georgia and elsewhere in Texas, settled in this West Texas country in 1892 and gave the land for its cemetery. He lived long enough to watch farming rise to rival ranching on the plains, and the tiny community of Teville—named for a road junction—rose and faded with him, its post office open only from 1906 to 1910. Four generations of the Handley family and their neighbors now rest in the ground he provided.
Scurry County Courthouse Site and Building
Snyder, TX
Scurry County was created in 1876 and organized in 1884, and local landholders donated the lots at the center of town for a courthouse square built atop a former buffalo trail. Citizens themselves bought the construction bonds, and a two-story courthouse of locally made red brick went up in 1886, complete with board sidewalks, a chain hitching rail, and a public windmill that served as the town's social hub. The present courthouse replaced it in 1909–11, and the old precinct boundaries laid out along the lanes approaching the square are still in use.
County Named for Texas Confederate William R. Scurry 1821-1864
Snyder, TX
A delegate to the Texas Secession Convention, William R. Scurry rose from lieutenant colonel of the 4th Texas Cavalry to brigadier general, commanding troops at Val Verde and Glorieta Pass in the 1861-62 New Mexico Campaign and helping retake Galveston in 1863. In the 1864 Red River Campaign he led his brigade through Mansfield and Pleasant Hill before falling at Jenkins' Ferry, Arkansas. The county that bears his name and this state marker stand as memorials to Texans who fought for the Confederacy.
County's First Law Men
Snyder, TX
When Scurry County organized in 1884, W. W. 'Uncle Billy' Nelson became its first sheriff and authorized a tiny 8-by-10-foot frame 'calaboose' for a jail — but he resigned after six months, worn down by unruly cowboys. His successor, T. J. Faught, won the cowhands' respect by quieting a rowdy saloon crowd with a wooden pool cue and, though he never wore a gun, served three terms from 1886 to 1892. A street in the original Snyder town plat was named for him, now 27th Street.