Victoria County Honor Roll
Victoria, Victoria County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Country's Defenders from Victoria County who made the supreme sacrifice in the World War erected by the citizens of Victoria County dedicated by Leon Zear Post No. 166 the American Legion. Overton A.Abshier, Charles J. Beyer, Oscar R. Booker, John R. Branch, Leo Leslie Brown, Willie E. Butler, Harry Russell Canfield, John J. Caton, Horace c. Davidson, Jacob B. Dentler, Joseph H. Devasier Lawrence J. Fox, Manuel De La Garza, George Gleinser, Maurice Lombardi Groce, Andrew Jackson Handley, Fritz Hoeber, Frank Joseph Holy, Henry Innocenti, Alfred Kohl, Thomas Lambertson, Edwin Ley, John J.Mikeska, Leo E. Mitchell,Walter E. Nitschmann, Albert S. Noble, James W. Priddy, William J. Rawlines, Clarence Elton Smith, Pedro Villareal, David Dell Weaver, Fritz Wolf, Henry Wurdel, Leon A. Zear, Raymond A. Allen, Reed Thomas Anderson, Elijah Atwood, Henry Bell, William M. Halein. "The right is more precious then peace, we shall fight for thing which we have always carried in our hearts to such a Task, We have dedicated our lives." (1917)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
This honor roll, dedicated by the American Legion's Leon Zear Post, records the men of Victoria County who died in World War I. Its long list of names — Anglo, German, and Tejano alike — and the ringing quotation about fighting for "the right" capture the patriotic fervor with which small Texas communities sent their sons to the trenches of France.
Why it matters
It memorializes how the Great War reached even into rural South Texas, turning a farming county's losses into a shared American sacrifice.
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Related events
- · World War I
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Victor M. Rose
Victoria, TX
Victor M. Rose (1842–1893), son of a Victoria County judge, left college to join the Confederate Army, serving in Ross' Brigade through some of the war's hardest fighting; he was wounded twice and held as a prisoner of war. Afterward he edited the Victoria Advocate and other Texas papers and became a noted author, writing a history of Victoria County and of Ross' Brigade. His story sits alongside a striking account of Civil War journalism in Texas, where soldier-correspondents like Rose supplied most war news across a state whose press was starved of paper and manpower.
Home County of William Pinckney McLean
Victoria, TX
A Victoria lawyer elected to the legislature in 1861 and to Congress from 1872 to 1874, William Pinckney McLean was appointed by Governor James S. Hogg to the newly created Railroad Commission of Texas, serving from 1891. First charged with regulating shipping rates, the Commission soon took on oil and gas—pipelines in 1917, conservation in 1919, and full regulation in the 1930s, when East Texas poured out 1.7 million barrels a day and martial law enforced its rules.
1892 Victoria County Courthouse
Victoria, TX
Victoria's public square traces to Martín de León's 1824 townsite of Guadalupe Victoria, and by 1849 the county raised its first courthouse there. In 1892 acclaimed architect J. Riely Gordon designed a Romanesque Revival successor, adapted to the Texas heat with a light-filled central atrium; contractors Martin, Byrne & Johnston completed it after Gordon left the project. Saved by residents in the 1960s and restored near the turn of the 21st century, it stands as a monument to Texas courthouse architecture.
Victoria County
Victoria, TX
Few Texas counties carry so deep a layering of history. Here in 1685 the French explorer La Salle built Fort St. Louis, the first European settlement in Texas; between 1722 and 1726 the Spanish answered with a presidio and the Mission of Espíritu Santo. In 1824 Martín De León led Mexican colonists to found the town he named Victoria, and when the county was created in March 1836 it took the same name.