Site of the First Court House Built in Reagan County
Big Lake, Reagan County, Texas
Marker Inscription
The following officials were installed May 8, 1903 Joseph J. Boyd, judge, J. B. Lucas, clerk, Henry Japson, sheriff and tax col., Frank Ramsey, treasurer, W.C. Shamlin, surveyor, M. D. Sutherland, assessor, Commissioners: Jno. E. Gardner, W. C. Castlebury, A. J. Kerchville, G. F. Kirk. The county seat was moved in 1925 to Big Lake. Erected by the State of Texas 1936
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
When Reagan County was carved out of the vast West Texas ranchlands and organized in 1903, its first slate of officials took office in a courthouse on this site, deep in the sparsely settled Permian Basin. The roster of judge, clerk, sheriff, surveyor, and commissioners reflects the machinery of frontier self-government taking root on the open range. In 1925 the county seat moved to Big Lake, and the state marked this founding spot in 1936 during the Texas Centennial.
Why it matters
The birth of county government on the West Texas frontier shows how American civic institutions followed settlers into even the most remote corners of the range.
The story behind this marker
AI contextThe era
At the start of the twentieth century, much of far West Texas was still open ranch country, with few people and long distances between neighbors. The state had long since drawn county lines across the map, but many of those counties existed only on paper until enough settlers arrived to organize a government. Reagan County, named for the Texas statesman John H. Reagan, was one of them.
Organizing a county was a big step for a frontier community. It meant local courts, local records, a sheriff, and a way to collect taxes and build roads, instead of depending on a distant county seat. In 1903 the people of this sparsely settled region took that step.
The decades that followed changed the region dramatically. The discovery of oil in the Permian Basin in the 1920s brought new towns, new wealth, and new rail and road connections. Places that had seemed permanent could suddenly be left behind, and in 1925 Reagan County moved its seat to Big Lake.
People & events
On May 8, 1903, the county's first officials were installed at the courthouse that once stood here. Joseph J. Boyd became county judge, J. B. Lucas clerk, Henry Japson sheriff and tax collector, Frank Ramsey treasurer, W. C. Shamlin surveyor, and M. D. Sutherland assessor. Four commissioners, Jno. E. Gardner, W. C. Castlebury, A. J. Kerchville, and G. F. Kirk, rounded out the new government.
It is worth pausing over that list. In a county with so few residents, these were not career politicians but ranchers, merchants, and neighbors who agreed to shoulder public duties. Notice that the sheriff also served as tax collector, a common arrangement in thinly populated counties where every office had to count.
The county seat did not stay here. In 1925 it moved to Big Lake, a town that grew with the oil boom and the railroad. In 1936, as Texas celebrated a century of independence, the state placed this marker to remember where the county's government first began.
Its place in the American story
Reagan County's founding is a small example of one of the most American habits of all: when people settle a new place, they quickly organize a government of their own. From colonial townships to Western counties, the pattern repeated across the continent, and it arrived in West Texas only at the dawn of the twentieth century.
The move of the county seat tells another national story. Across the West, towns rose and fell with railroads, water, and resources. When oil transformed the Permian Basin, it reshaped where people lived and where power sat, and some early towns faded as newer ones grew.
The marker itself is part of history too. It was placed during the Texas Centennial of 1936, one of the largest historical marking efforts in American history, when the state set out to preserve the memory of its founding places for future generations.
If you visit
This is a place for imagination more than architecture. Stand by the marker and take in the wide, open country around you, then picture a handful of officials gathering in 1903 to swear in a brand-new county government in the middle of the ranchlands.
The drive itself is part of the experience. West Texas skies are enormous, and the roads between towns give you a real sense of how isolated early settlers were and why having local government close at hand mattered so much.
Pair this stop with a visit to Big Lake, where the county seat moved in 1925, and with the oil-boom history of the surrounding Permian Basin. Together they tell a complete story of a frontier county, from its ranching beginnings to its oil-field transformation.
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
- · Joseph J. Boyd
- · Henry Japson
- · Frank Ramsey
Related events
- · Organization of Reagan County (1903)
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Stiles Courthouse
Big Lake, TX
Built in 1911 from stone quarried just half a mile away at a cost of $20,000, this courthouse served the county until 1925, when the seat of government moved to Big Lake. In the years that followed it found new life as a community center and, for a single year, a school.
Stiles Cemetery
Big Lake, TX
Established around 1903 on the ranchland of settlers G. W. and Lizzie Stiles, this three-acre cemetery reads like a frontier chronicle. Its graves hold cowboys killed in range accidents, a Spanish-American War veteran, and victims of shootings, rattlesnake bites, and a dysentery epidemic—though most, the marker notes, were pioneers of quiet and steady lives. The plot was deeded to the county in 1920 by J. D. Wagner, a wanderer who split his years between Texas and South America.
Reagan County
Big Lake, TX
Reagan County was carved from Tom Green County and organized in 1903 as ranching and, later, oil pushed settlement across the West Texas plains. It honors John H. Reagan (1818-1905), an Indian fighter, surveyor, and long-serving Texas congressman who became Postmaster General of the Confederacy and later a founding force of the Texas Railroad Commission. The county seat moved from Stiles to Big Lake in 1925.
John E. Gardner Place
Big Lake, TX
This mud-mortared house of native stone is the oldest in Reagan County, a plain and practical dwelling built without window glass — its openings closed instead by swinging shutters. It survives as a rare witness to how the first families made a home on the arid West Texas range, using only the stone at hand.