Witness Tree
Snyder, Scurry County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Used in early land surveys to indicate boundaries. Historical marker is on library grounds across street. (1966)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Long before fences and GPS, surveyors marked property lines with 'witness trees' — living landmarks blazed to record the corners and boundaries of newly measured land. This marker recalls that early practice, when the shape of Texas was written onto its own forests and open country by men with chains and compasses.
Why it matters
It preserves a small but essential piece of frontier land history, when surveying turned open territory into the deeded parcels that made settlement possible.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Witness Tree
Snyder, TX
The hackberry stump across the street once served as a "witness tree" in the land surveys that carved up the West Texas frontier. Under Texas custom rooted in Spanish law, boundaries were fixed by natural and man-made witnesses and measured in varas and leagues, with grantees formally taking possession by shouting, throwing stones, and firing guns. When this land was first surveyed in 1873 for a railroad, it was still hostile country; surveyors worked with rifles on their shoulders, and only after buffalo hunters and Gen. Ranald Mackenzie's cavalry had cleared the plains did settlement follow.
City of Snyder
Snyder, TX
Snyder began in 1878 as "Hide Town," a rough camp of tents and dugouts where buffalo hunters traded on Deep Creek, taking its lasting name from trader W.H. "Pete" Snyder. The railroad's arrival in 1908 knit it into the wider economy, but it was the 1948 discovery of the vast Canyon Reef oil field that transformed the quiet county seat into an overnight boom town, tripling its population in a single year.
Site of O.K. Wagon Yard
Snyder, TX
In the early 1900s the O.K. Wagon Yard on Snyder's old Jackass Avenue offered travelers rooms and horse stalls for two bits apiece, along with blacksmithing, harness repair, and stud animals — and, with the right introduction, a jar of homemade "White Lightning." Saturdays brought passed-hat rodeos, and "first Mondays" drew farmers, ranchers, and mule skinners to swap livestock and goods. The yard closed in the 1930s.
First State Bank Building
Snyder, TX
Built in 1907-08 beside Deep Creek, where the trail of Gen. Ranald Mackenzie's U.S. Cavalry had once run, this Snyder landmark housed the First State Bank & Trust Co., an early bank serving West Texas cattlemen and ranchers. It closed during the depression year of 1931 and afterward sheltered many tenants, including the local newspaper. Its Ionic-columned Greek Revival exterior survives unchanged from the day it was built.