Site of Store of William Henry (Pete) Snyder
Snyder, Scurry County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Adventurer, Civil War veteran, whose career included mining Colorado gold, building railroads in Kansas, hauling freight and buffalo hides in Texas; opened Snyder's first trading post, 1878. Built of lumber hauled from Ft. Worth in ox-wagons by Webb Brothers, Jim, Jeff and Ben. Store furnished supplies to buffalo hunters who infiltrated area, lived in dugouts on Deep Creek. After 3 years, Snyder quit the trading business, laid out part of original townsite and sold lots from his property. Moved to Colorado City, where he died in 1916 at age of 79. (1968)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
William Henry "Pete" Snyder — a Civil War veteran who had mined Colorado gold, built Kansas railroads, and hauled freight and buffalo hides — opened Snyder's first trading post here in 1878, its lumber freighted by ox-wagon from Fort Worth. The store supplied buffalo hunters living in dugouts along Deep Creek. After three years Snyder left the trade, laid out part of the original townsite, and sold lots before moving to Colorado City, where he died in 1916.
Why it matters
Pete Snyder's trading post seeded a West Texas town and marks the buffalo-hunting frontier economy at the very edge of Anglo settlement on the plains.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Henry "Pete" Snyder
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Fluvanna Mercantile Company
Fluvanna, TX
Founded in 1915 by D. A. Jones and John A. Stavely, the Fluvanna Mercantile Company was a classic West Texas general store, its shelves of clothing, groceries, hardware, millinery and patent medicines freighted in by the Roscoe, Snyder & Pacific Railroad. During the Depression cash gave way to barter as neighbors traded cream and eggs for "store-bought" supplies.
First National Bank in Big Spring
Big Spring, TX
Chartered in 1890 with $50,000 in capital, the First National Bank of Big Spring opened on the ground floor of a downtown building that also housed the post office. A rival, West Texas National Bank, followed in 1903, and both prospered through the boom years of the 1920s before the Great Depression brought hard times. The two institutions merged in 1934 to become the First National Bank in Big Spring.
Claiborne Walker Merchant
Abilene, TX
Born in East Texas and hardened by service in the Confederate army, Claiborne "Clabe" Merchant turned to the open range, founding his first ranch in 1874 as cattle became the engine of the West Texas economy. When the railroad reached the plains in 1881, he helped establish a new town and gave it the name Abilene, after the famous Kansas cattle hub. He spent decades pouring his time and fortune into the community he helped raise from open country.
Midland County
Midland, TX
Midland sits where old cattle trails once crossed and where, tradition holds, the last Comanche raid into Texas passed. The Texas and Pacific Railroad reached the spot in 1881, and its position halfway between El Paso and Fort Worth gave the town its name. Sheep and Hereford cattle came first, then farmers drawn by windmill-pumped water—until the 1928 Permian Basin oil discovery made Midland the headquarters of a booming petroleum empire.