Search Markers

Boston, MA

During the Second World War, Boston's shipyards became a busy haven for the Royal Navy, as British warships crossed the Atlantic to be built, repaired, and refitted in American yards. Thousands of British sailors passed through the city, where local families and institutions offered them hospitality far from home. This plaque was the Royal Navy's thank-you to Bostonians for that wartime friendship.

Medford, MA · est. 1930

This Georgian mansion was built in the 1730s by Isaac Royall, a merchant who grew wealthy in the Caribbean and arrived from Antigua bringing enslaved people to labor on his Medford estate — making it one of New England's starkest surviving sites of northern slavery. His loyalist son later endowed Harvard's first professorship of law, the seed of Harvard Law School. During the Siege of Boston the house served as headquarters for the Revolutionary general John Stark.

Royse City, TX

Freemasonry followed the railroads and new towns across Texas, and Royse City's lodge held its first meeting in 1888 as the community took shape. In 1925 the members raised this two-story building, its truncated towers, brick pilasters, and arched windows blending Classical Revival and Mission styling popular in that era. When the city bought the ground floor in 1941, the arrangement neatly captured small-town Texas life—civic business below, fraternal fellowship above.

Roby vicinity, TX

Royston sprang up in 1906 when the Texas Central Railroad laid tracks across Fisher County, quickly gaining a depot, a 30-room hotel, a bank, a newspaper, and a bustling town square. As the hub of a rich cotton-farming district — later broadened by the 1928 oil discovery — it thrived for decades. When rail service ended in 1972 and the tracks were pulled up, the town faded into a ghost town.

Port Arthur, TX

Built in 1915 for Port Arthur's First United Methodist Church, this Gothic-and-Tudor landmark rose on Port Arthur College land under an unusual pact that let the school use the building whenever worship did not. When the congregation merged and moved in 1976, the building passed to the college and was dedicated in 1978 to Ruby Ruth Fuller, who taught Sunday school for 42 years and was the church's only teacher emeritus. Its towered brick facade and opalescent glass still frame classrooms today.

Elko, NV

This little building once stood some sixty miles to the south, where for about a year in 1860-61 it served as a station on the Pony Express, the famous relay of riders that raced mail across the West. When that service gave way to the transcontinental telegraph, the station's working life ended, and in 1960 the structure was moved here and preserved. It survives as a tangible relic of the brief, legendary experiment in overland mail.

Crockett, TX

A native Texan, Rudd Crawford Spinks came to Houston County in 1878 and built a wide-ranging life there. From a jewelry and music store in Crockett he branched into farming, freighting, cotton ginning, sawmilling, and land ownership, and he built several area homes and bred registered livestock. Father of six sons, he was also known for outspoken commentary on the government and politicians of his day.

Colorado City, TX

This West Texas park was deeded to Colorado City in 1929 in memory of pioneers W. P. and Sarah Ruddick, but the ground it sits on carried a longer, harder history. The nearby Colorado River saw an 1840 clash between Colonel John Henry Moore's men and a Comanche village, and the creek here still bears the name of the Kiowa chief Lone Wolf; by 1880 Texas Rangers of the Frontier Battalion were stationed here against raids. When the Texas & Pacific Railroad arrived in 1881, settlers like the Quaker Ruddick—who introduced registered Jersey and Hereford cattle and raised some of Mitchell County's first cotton—poured into the region.

Del Rio, TX

South Carolina native Rudolf Anderson joined the Air Force in 1951 and flew reconnaissance during the Korean Conflict before being stationed at Laughlin Air Force Base near Del Rio. On October 27, 1962, at the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis, he was piloting a U-2 over Cuba to photograph a missile site under construction when antiaircraft fire brought down his plane, making him the only American airman killed in the crisis. Decorated posthumously, he was honored in 2001 when Laughlin's operations building was named Anderson Hall.

Mason, TX

Stonemason Thomas Broad built this Mason home around 1891, one of several he crafted with turned posts and random-ashlar stonework marked by distinctive quoins and pointing. From 1895 it belonged to Therese Runge and her husband Rudolph, a German-born attorney; their sons Carl and Roscoe grew up to become prominent Texas lawyers and politicians.

Tyler, TX

Rudolph Bergfeld arrived in Tyler in 1878 and, over the next half-century, helped remake the town. Starting with a saloon, he moved into real estate, railroads, and eventually banking, founding loan-and-trust firms that merged into major regional banks. He helped launch the Grand Opera House, developed the historic Azalea District, sold the city land for a park that bears his name, and served for years on the school board.

Mineola, TX

Rufus Cornelius Hickman was born in Mineola in 1918 and learned photography while serving as an Army photographer in the Pacific during World War II. Settling in Dallas, he spent decades documenting African American life under Jim Crow and the unfolding Civil Rights Movement — from the NAACP Youth Council's 1955 protest of the segregated State Fair to the violent 1956 resistance to desegregation in Mansfield. His images recorded both the everyday humanity and the hard struggles of Black Texans.

Brownwood, TX

Brownwood's first school for African-American children began in 1885 in the home and yard of George Smith, a man born into slavery in Virginia who had served as a Buffalo Soldier before becoming a teacher and school trustee. Classes moved through churches and a succession of buildings — with Rufus F. Hardin taking over as principal in 1896 — until a 1917 fire led to a new schoolhouse and, in 1918, the first graduating class of five. Renamed for Hardin in 1934, the Romanesque Revival stone school saw its grades integrated into Brownwood's schools between 1955 and 1966.

Memphis, TN

Born in Mississippi in 1917, Rufus Thomas, Jr. began in traveling minstrel shows and became one of the great showmen of Memphis, hosting the amateur nights at the Palace Theatre that once stood here. From that stage rose talents like B.B. King and Bobby 'Blue' Bland, and Thomas himself scored early hits for both the Sun and Stax labels while spinning records on pioneering Black station WDIA. His 1960s dance songs 'The Dog' and 'The Funky Chicken' made him a national star.

New York, NY

Beneath the streets of Lower Manhattan lies the buried heart of 17th-century New Amsterdam, the Dutch trading colony that grew into New York. On this block, one of the city's first large-scale urban archaeological digs unearthed the foundations of the Stadt Huys — the town hall that served as the seat of Dutch, then early English, colonial government — along with the remains of a nearby tavern. The recovered walls, ceramics, and everyday objects offered a rare tangible glimpse of the small port town that once stood where skyscrapers now rise.

Pine Springs, TX

Built in 1858 in the shadow of the Guadalupe Mountains, 'The Pinery' served as a station on the Butterfield Overland Mail route, the pioneering stagecoach line that carried mail and passengers between St. Louis and San Francisco. Its stone walls sheltered travelers and fresh mule teams for barely a year before the line was rerouted south through the Davis Mountains in 1859. The State of Texas erected this memorial to the ruins in 1936.

Yoakum, TX

On land donated in 1868, Irish and Czech Catholic settlers near the trading station of Bovine built St. Joseph's Church from Muldoon stone, milled pine, and hand-hewn logs, with blacksmiths forging the very nails and hinges on site. The parish was tied to Father John Anthony Forest, who became bishop of the Diocese of San Antonio. The last Mass was said here in 1912, and the church burned in 1932, leaving the ruins that stand today.

Coleman, TX

Camp Colorado was established by the U.S. Army to guard the Texas frontier against raids, moving to this site in 1856 before Federal troops abandoned it as the Civil War began in early 1861. In 1870 the land passed to Henry Sackett, who built his home on the old post grounds. From here in 1874 Sackett rode with Maltby's Rangers in pursuit of the Comanche bands of chiefs Big Foot and Jape.

Ozona, TX

The United States Army established Fort Lancaster in 1855 to guard travelers and mail carriers along the rugged overland road linking San Antonio to San Diego. Abandoned in 1861 as the Civil War drew troops away, it was briefly reoccupied in 1868 before falling into ruin. Its stone remnants mark the hard, isolated work of protecting one of the era's great transcontinental routes.

Fort Davis vicinity, TX

In 1854 the pioneer Manuel Musquiz built a ranch home in the rugged country near the Davis Mountains, only to abandon it under the pressure of raids. In the early 1880s the deserted buildings found new purpose as an intermittent Ranger station while the region was being pacified.

Von Ormy, TX

Begun in the 1840s and still used by its founding families, the Ruiz-Herrera Cemetery holds Tejano patriots of the Texas Revolution. Among them is Francisco Antonio Ruiz, San Antonio's acting mayor in 1836 and son of a family of independence signers, and Blas Herrera, remembered for riding to warn the Alamo's defenders of Santa Anna's approach. The burial ground ties several generations of a Spanish-speaking Texas community to the founding struggle.

Donna, TX

Once part of the Cavazos family's mid-1800s Asadores Ranch, this stretch of the Rio Grande Valley was transformed at the turn of the 20th century when East Texas rice farmers and other newcomers organized irrigation companies and coaxed the railroad into the area. The tiny community of Run took its name from postmaster Ed Ruthven, whose store, a school, and his brother's irrigation pumps briefly anchored local life. A devastating flood in 1909 sent many residents drifting toward nearby Donna, and Run faded soon after.

El Reno, OK

At high noon on April 22, 1889, this line marked the western edge of the land opened in the first great Oklahoma Land Run. When the signal sounded, tens of thousands of homesteaders raced across the two-million-acre 'Old Oklahoma' tract to stake their claims. Within hours, open prairie gave way to instant tent cities and settled homesteads.

Runge, TX

Runge's bandstand, first raised before 1900 and rebuilt in 1924 by the Civic League and the "Rungetex" Brass Band, was the beating heart of small-town social life in this Karnes County community. Older residents recalled band concerts, ice cream socials, and Easter egg hunts staged in its shade. It was rededicated in 1970 by the local VFW auxiliary, keeping the gathering place alive across generations.

Santa Fe, TX

Henry J. Runge (1859–1922), the European-educated son of a German immigrant and a Galveston businessman, bought the land and laid out the town of Arcadia in 1890, setting aside this site as a park at the same time. The county commissioners later named it in his honor. The park hosted its first community-wide event, a dairy show, in 1938 — a tradition that continues — and grew to host the annual Galveston County Fair and Rodeo.

Runge, TX

Runge stands near where the old ox-cart road from San Antonio to Indianola crossed a spring-fed creek—the Ojo de Agua—long a camping and hunting ground for Karankawa, Tonkawa, Apache, and Comanche peoples. Anglo settlers arrived in the early 1850s at a place first called Sulphur Springs, and in 1886 the Cuero merchant firm of H. Runge and Company platted the townsite. The arrival of the San Antonio & Aransas Pass Railroad made Runge the largest town in Karnes County by 1890.

Ballinger, TX

Carved from Bexar and Travis counties, Runnels County was created in 1858 and formally organized in 1880. It honors Hiram G. Runnels, a lawyer, Mississippi governor, and later Texas legislator. Its first county seat was Runnels City, but that role passed to Ballinger in 1888.

Ballinger, TX

After Runnels County organized in 1880, its residents fought a heated contest with Runnels City before Ballinger—on land the Santa Fe Railroad had platted in 1886—won the county seat, and the courthouse rose here in 1888-89. It stands on one of the largest courthouse squares in Texas, a full two city blocks. A 1941 remodeling added two wings faced with stone from the same local quarry reopened along the Colorado River.

Plainview, TX

Drawn by the reliable water of Running Water Draw, the Morrison brothers founded a ranch here in 1881, and cattleman C.C. Slaughter later joined the operation that employed most of the area's early settlers. In 1890 Dennis Rice opened a post office in his dugout and set out to build a town, staging a Fourth of July barbecue in 1892 to sell lots; soon Running Water had a blacksmith, grist mill, store, churches, and school. But when the railroad bypassed it in 1928, the community faded — the post office moved to Edmondson in 1935, and by 1937 the settlement itself had taken that name.

Athens, TX

A prodigy printer who set type at ten and held a Kentucky printer's license at sixteen, Rupert Talmage Craig came to the Athens Review in 1907 and by eighteen was already a small-town newspaper publisher. He bought the Athens Review in 1916 and built it into a respected daily, his editorials earning him standing with state and national politicians and the title 'Country Editor of the South' in 1938.

Ridge, TX

Drawn by rich soil and reliable water, pioneers settled western Mills County in the 1870s and 1880s, founding the communities of Regency, Ebony, and Ridge, each with churches, schools, and a post office. During World War II the U.S. government bought regional land to create Camp Bowie, and many residents who left never returned. Today only faint traces of these once-thriving towns remain.

Perry Township, PA

In 1936, three-quarters of Pennsylvania's farms still had no electricity, leaving rural families without the lights and machinery transforming towns and cities. Over the next five years, backed by federal support, fourteen consumer-owned cooperatives formed across the state to string wire into the countryside. Central Electric Cooperative, incorporated at Parker on July 12, 1937, brought power to users across seven western Pennsylvania counties.

Standing Stone Township, PA · est. 1986

In 1936, three of every four Pennsylvania farms still had no electricity, their families living much as their grandparents had. With federal backing from the New Deal, farmers banded together into consumer-owned cooperatives to string their own lines, and the Claverack Rural Electric Cooperative, incorporated that October, brought power to parts of eight northeastern counties. Within five years fourteen such co-ops had transformed rural life across the state.

Woodcock Township, PA · est. 1986

On August 5, 1936, the first rural electric pole in Pennsylvania was set into the ground here by the Northwestern Rural Electric Cooperative Association. Incorporated that April, it was the state's very first such cooperative, formed by farmers determined to bring power to homes the private utilities had passed by. Its example spread quickly, and thirteen more co-ops followed within five years.

Mansfield, PA · est. 1986

In the depths of the Depression, three of every four Pennsylvania farms still had no electric power—darkness that private utilities saw no profit in lifting. The New Deal changed that: with federal loans behind them, farmers banded together into consumer-owned cooperatives to string their own lines. The Tri-County Rural Electric Cooperative, incorporated in October 1936, brought light and modern machinery to much of north-central Pennsylvania.

Forksville, PA · est. 1987

In 1936, three-quarters of Pennsylvania's farms still lacked electricity, which private companies found unprofitable to supply. With federal backing, rural families organized consumer-owned cooperatives to bring power to themselves. The Sullivan County Rural Electric Cooperative, incorporated in December 1936, wired homes and farms across Sullivan, Lycoming, and Bradford counties.

White Township, PA · est. 1988

In 1936, three of every four Pennsylvania farms still went dark at sundown, cut off from the electric grid that already lit the cities. Federal support during the New Deal changed that, spurring farmers to band together into consumer-owned cooperatives. One of them, the Southwest Central Rural Electric Cooperative, was incorporated here in 1937 to bring power to users across seven counties.

Bedford Township, PA · est. 1989

In the depths of the Depression, three-quarters of Pennsylvania's farms still went dark at sundown—the power companies saw no profit in stringing wire down long country roads. The New Deal changed that: with federal loans behind them, rural neighbors banded together into consumer-owned cooperatives to electrify themselves. Bedford Rural Electric Cooperative, chartered in 1939, was one of fourteen such co-ops that brought light, refrigeration, and modern machinery to the farms of Bedford, Fulton, and Somerset counties.

South Woodbury Township, PA · est. 1989

When investor-owned utilities refused to run power lines into thinly settled farm country, Pennsylvania's farmers organized their own answer. Backed by federal support in the late 1930s, they formed fourteen consumer-owned electric cooperatives across the state. New Enterprise Rural Electric Cooperative, incorporated in 1938, wired homes and barns across Bedford, Fulton, and Huntingdon counties, ending generations of kerosene lamps and hand labor.

Black Township, PA · est. 1989

In the mid-1930s, three of every four Pennsylvania farms still went dark at sundown, bypassed by private power companies that saw no profit in stringing lines across thinly settled countryside. New Deal support changed that: over five years, consumer-owned cooperatives formed to bring electricity where the market would not, and the Somerset Rural Electric Cooperative was incorporated in March 1939 to serve four Pennsylvania counties and one in Maryland. Neighbors pooled resources to light their own homes and barns.

Cumberland Township, PA · est. 1990

In 1936 most Pennsylvania farms had no electricity, left in the dark by utilities unwilling to serve sparse rural routes. With federal backing, a wave of consumer-owned cooperatives sprang up across the Commonwealth, and the Adams Electric Cooperative at Gettysburg was incorporated in 1940 to carry power to members throughout south-central Pennsylvania. It was a farmer-owned answer to a need private industry had declined to meet.

Oneida Township, PA · est. 1992

In 1936 three-quarters of Pennsylvania's farms still had no electricity, leaving rural families to a life without electric light, pumps, or motors. With federal support, fourteen consumer-owned cooperatives sprang up across the state over the next five years to string wire where private utilities would not. The Valley Rural Electric Cooperative, incorporated here in 1938, brought power to seven counties from its Huntingdon headquarters.

Sayersville, TX

As the U.S. mobilized for war in 1940, the government seized this area for Camp Swift, giving landowners just 30 days to leave. The displacement erased farms and whole rural settlements—among them communities dating to the 19th century, a French immigrant's winery, and a lignite-mining village with its own cemeteries. After the war, many former residents could not buy their land back, and the National Guard retained much of the acreage.

New Stanton, PA · est. 2001

For most of the 19th century, country families had to travel miles to a town post office to collect their mail. That changed on November 24, 1896, when the Post Office Department launched two of the nation's earliest rural routes here in Westmoreland County — one from New Stanton, another from nearby Ruffsdale. The experiment, begun weeks earlier in West Virginia, spread with astonishing speed: by 1905 some 32,000 routes reached into the American countryside.

Kerens, TX

By 1850 families had gathered near the Wildcat Ferry on the Trinity River, and a gravel road from Corsicana soon ran through the settlement that became Rural Shade. A post office arrived in 1858, a school district in 1867, and by the century's turn the community of log-cabin farmers had grown to include fine homes, churches, and hundreds of schoolchildren. Rural Shade thrived until World War II drew its young people to the cities, after which its old school became a community center kept alive by yearly reunions.

Cleveland, TX

At least fourteen charter members founded this church in the Tarkington's Prairie community around 1870, and in 1878 raised a two-story building that shared its purpose: a Baptist congregation below and a Masonic lodge above, with many members belonging to both. Early pastors, elected from the congregation, preached once or twice a month, often on Saturdays, and hosted the revivals then known as "meeting of days." The church long held the nearby Ryan Cemetery, deeded to it in 1908, until passing it to a cemetery association in 1989.

Decatur, TX

Named for the stream that once ran through it, the Rush Creek community had a school, two churches, and this cemetery, whose oldest recorded grave is that of infant Harry Houston, who died in 1875. Of its 110 graves, nearly half hold children who died before the age of twenty — a sobering measure of frontier life — and among the adults rest veterans of the Civil War and World War I. The community faded away in the 1930s as land erosion drove families off, but descendants still tend the cemetery today.

Rusk, TX

Founded in 1846 and named for Republic of Texas statesman Thomas J. Rusk, this Cherokee County seat became an industrial center and Confederate supply depot during the Civil War. It later claimed the distinction of birthing two Texas governors, James S. Hogg and Thomas M. Campbell. The town and county remain dotted with historical sites open to visitors.

Nacogdoches, TX

Rising on land once part of statesman Thomas Jefferson Rusk's homestead, the Rusk Building was completed in 1926 to serve the fast-growing Stephen F. Austin State Teachers College. Designed by architect W. E. Ketchum in a dignified classical revival style—Doric columns, a grand staircase, and a pedimented entry—it first housed the library, the education and business departments, and a demonstration school for training teachers. Over the decades it sheltered a shifting mix of academic programs and administrative offices, and a 1987 renovation restored its original grandeur.

Henderson, TX

In the early years of Texas statehood, Rusk County was dotted with large plantations, but by the close of the Civil War most had given way to small farms raising cotton, sugar cane, grains, and orchards. Lumber became a major product in the early 1900s, and cattle raising expanded through the century even as the number of farms shrank. In recent decades the county's economy has tilted from agriculture toward oil and mining. This marker was placed for the Texas Sesquicentennial, 1836-1986.

Rusk, TX

For generations, the low ground east of Rusk turned to impassable mud in the rainy season, cutting residents off from town. The answer was this remarkable elevated walkway, first thrown across the valley in 1861 and rebuilt in 1889 by engineer T. H. Barnes—the same man who laid out the boomtown of New Birmingham to the east, now a ghost town. The city maintained the 546-foot span until 1950, and it was restored in 1969 using Barnes's own plans.

Rusk, TX

Drawn by the region's rich iron ore, a state commission chose this East Texas tract for a penitentiary, and in 1878 Ohio contractors raised a fortress with sandstone walls two and a half feet thick. Convicts here built the Texas State Railroad and worked the "Old Alcalde" smelting furnace, whose iron went into buildings across the state and nation under the era's harsh convict-leasing system. In 1917 the legislature converted the complex into Rusk State Hospital for the mentally ill, a role its administrative center still serves.

Bertram, TX

In 1910 Burnet County voters approved funding for new bridges, and the following year this 102-foot Pratt-truss iron span rose over the Russell Fork of the North San Gabriel River, built by the Missouri Valley Bridge & Iron Company. Its diagonal-web design descended from the truss patented by Thomas and Caleb Pratt in 1844. For the Asher family and their Joppa-area neighbors, the bridge eased trips to market—and its shaded riverbank became a gathering place through the Depression and World War II.

Amarillo, TX

Russell Hall was one of the first two permanent buildings at Amarillo College, raised in 1937-39 with Public Works Administration funding during the Depression. Architect Guy Carlander designed it in a geometric Art Deco style—chevrons, flutes, and the words "honor" and "valor" carved above its doors—and the gymnasium was later renamed for Dr. Natalie Russell, a champion of women's physical education at the college.

Bedford, PA · est. 1951

Built in 1816 by James Russell, the first burgess (chief elected official) of the newly organized borough of Bedford, this house survives as a handsome example of the Georgian architectural style that lingered into the early republic. Bedford had grown from a rough frontier outpost on the road west into a settled county seat, and homes like this reflected the ambitions of the men who organized its civic life.

Wills Point, TX

This congregation began in 1875 as the Wills Point Methodist Episcopal Church, South, after a retired minister led services for the young community, and it called its first resident pastor in 1878. Its early sanctuary, built about 1877, was flattened by an 1890 tornado and quickly rebuilt. In 1924 a new edifice was named for a deceased steward, Eric A. Russell, and over the decades the congregation absorbed neighboring flocks before consecrating its present home in 1974.

Butler Township, PA · est. 1947

In October 1794 President George Washington rode west at the head of nearly 13,000 militiamen to put down the Whiskey Rebellion, an armed revolt against the federal excise tax on distilled spirits. On the march he lodged at Russell Tavern, whose original building still stood within sight of this spot. It was the only time a sitting president personally led troops in the field.

Town of Russell, NY

In small towns across the North Country of New York, communities have long set aside a place to record the names of their own who answered the nation's call to arms. Russell, a rural town in the St. Lawrence County foothills settled in the early nineteenth century, is one of many such places where a memorial gathers those names into a single roll of honor. Rather than commemorating one battle or one war, a hometown veterans memorial like this one binds together generations of local service — a permanent civic thank-you carved where neighbors pass every day.

Brownsville, TX

Built in 1877 for Judge William H. Russell, this eclectic Victorian home was bought in 1885 by Joseph James Cocke, a Virginian and Confederate veteran whose family lived there into the late 1940s. Its Italianate and Greek Revival details — classical massing, bracketed porch, and a striking pedimented dormer — made it a neighborhood landmark. Its 1975 restoration helped spark wider preservation efforts in Brownsville.

Rutersville, TX

Founded in 1838 on the recommendation of pioneer Methodist missionary Dr. Martin Ruter, this Fayette County town was named for him after he died, worn out by his Texas travels, that same year. In 1840 the Republic of Texas chartered Rutersville College here — the Republic's first Protestant college — open to families of all faiths. Students were known for interrupting classes to pursue Indian raiders, and after the Civil War German immigrants bought up the town, their descendants living here still.