William Lenard Foster
Sterling City, Sterling County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Navarro County native William Lenard Foster migrated to this area in 1881 with his brother Robert West Foster. One of the region's pioneer settlers, W. L. Foster was a prominent rancher and landowner and was elected one of the first commissioners of Sterling County. A founder of the First Methodist Church, he served as president and director of the First National Bank of Sterling City from its founding in 1910 until his death in 1950. Recorded - 1982
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
William Lenard Foster came to the Sterling City country in 1881 with his brother, part of the wave of ranchers who settled West Texas as the open range gave way to organized counties. A prominent landowner, he served among Sterling County's first commissioners, helped found the First Methodist Church, and led the First National Bank from its 1910 opening until his death in 1950 — a span that carried him from frontier pioneer to pillar of a settled town.
Why it matters
Foster's long life traces the maturing of West Texas from raw rangeland into a community of churches, banks, and county government within a single generation.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · William Lenard Foster
- · Robert West Foster
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Concho, San Saba & Llano Valley Railroad Station
Sterling City, TX
When the Concho, San Saba and Llano Valley Railroad pushed a line into Sterling City in 1909, it was chasing the wealth of West Texas ranch country—livestock that needed a way to distant markets. A boxcar served as the first depot until this mission revival station rose to take its place, becoming the hub of a young ranching town. Highways and pipelines eventually siphoned away the freight, and the line went quiet in 1958, leaving the depot as the last witness to the rail era that built the area.
Cedar Hill
Silver, TX
Stock-farming homesteaders settled the Cedar Hill area around 1890, naming it for a nearby cedar-covered rise and building a one-room school in 1891 near the cemetery that still remains. No town ever took hold — drought and hardship drove many families away by 1904, and the school closed after 1917. Three decades later an oil boom swept the county, and the once-emptied land came to sit within one of West Texas' largest oil fields.
Renderbrook Ranch
Westbrook, TX
Founded in the 1870s on the open range of West Texas, Renderbrook grew into a sprawling cattle operation that eventually covered well over a hundred thousand acres. In 1889 it passed to Isaac Ellwood, a partner in the barbed-wire industry that was fencing in the plains, who paid partly in wire and stocked the range with Spade-brand cattle. His heirs still run that brand, a rare thread of continuity from the era of the great ranches.
Arden Community
Mertzon, TX
Arden took its name from John Arden, a sheep raiser who reached this west Texas range in 1876, and grew into a ranching community as homesteaders filtered in after 1900. Neighbors shared a schoolhouse for Baptist, Church of Christ, and Methodist worship and gathered for camp meetings at a creekside grove. A string of droughts steadily drained the settlement — the post office closed in 1942 and the school in 1947 — leaving Arden among the many west Texas communities that faded back into open country.