Search Markers

Leonard, TX

This supplemental plaque records the founding of Blanton Chapel in 1872 by Benjamin J. Blanton, one of the countless Methodist congregations that took root across rural North Texas during Reconstruction. Small chapels like this served scattered farming families as centers of worship and community in the decades after the Civil War. The marker preserves the memory of the chapel's origin and its namesake founder near Leonard in Fannin County.

Wolfe City, TX

Built in 1923, Blanton School was one of thousands of schools for Black children created through the partnership of educator Booker T. Washington and Sears president Julius Rosenwald, who matched funds raised by the local African American community. Its design maximized natural light and ventilation, and its calendar bent to the cotton harvest so students could work the fields each fall. With just three teachers for seventy students in grades one through eight, it served Wolfe City's Black families until Hunt County schools integrated in 1965.

Plainview, TX

J.W. Pipkin built this Colonial Revival house in 1910, when Plainview was booming as a new railroad center. In 1918 it was bought by F.E. Blasingame and his wife Mary, who for more than sixty years ran local restaurants that became beloved social gathering places. The home stayed in the family until 1981.

Bleakwood, TX

After the Civil War, settlers built up the Bleakwood community around thriving mills and a cotton gin in the East Texas piney woods. Mill-owner Reuben Bennington donated an acre for this cemetery, whose oldest marked grave dates to 1871. Its rows hold veterans of every American war from the Civil War through Korea.

Cochran, GA

Bleckley County was carved out by the Georgia Legislature in 1912 and named for Logan E. Bleckley, remembered as one of the state's greatest jurists. Born in Rabun County in 1827, Bleckley served as a Confederate soldier, then rose through the Georgia Supreme Court to become Chief Justice. The marker also records the county's first slate of local officers as it began its work.

Lubbock, TX

Built in 1925 on the newly organized range land of Cochran County, this Santa Fe depot at Bledsoe was far more than a railroad station—it doubled as a meeting hall for churches and clubs, and sheepherders and cowboys bedded down on its floor during shipping season. Rail service faded by 1966, and the structure was moved seventy miles to be preserved. It survives as a relic of one of America's last settled frontiers.

Milwaukee, WI

Built in 1904, the Blessed Virgin of Pompeii Church was the first church edifice serving Milwaukee's Italian immigrant community, and the city later designated it a landmark in 1967. Italian immigrants arriving around the turn of the century built parishes like this as anchors of faith, language, and mutual support in their new neighborhoods. The church became a cornerstone of the community often remembered as Milwaukee's 'Little Italy.'

Blessing, TX

When rancher Jonathan Pierce laid out the railroad town of Blessing in the early 1900s, its women moved quickly to nurture its cultural life, founding the Blessing Library Association in 1912. They joined the Texas Federation of Women's Clubs and, with a donated ranch building from A.B. Pierce, opened a library and later funded a community house in 1921. That hall became the town's stage for dances, movies, plays, concerts, and immunization drives for decades.

Blessing, TX

Raised during the town's 1907 boom, the Blessing State Bank is one of the few commercial buildings surviving from that era and may be the work of Victoria architect Jules Leffland, who designed the nearby Blessing Hotel. The bank operated until 1932, and after decades without one, Blessing saw the building restored to its original function and look in 1966. Its arched windows, asymmetrical entry, and flat roof give it the stately air of a classic early-20th-century bank.

Eddy, TX

Born in the Republic of Texas in 1838, Amanda Ruble Taylor came to this area in 1855, and the cemetery began with her burial on family land in 1875. Her widower, the Rev. Isaac Taylor, deeded the ground to the Methodist Episcopal Church, South, in 1879. The many infant graves speak to the hardness of frontier life, while veterans resting here span conflicts from the Texas Revolution to World War II alongside the farmers who worked the land.

Eddy, TX

Blevins took root around 1860 when Thomas H. Barron, a veteran of the Texas Revolution, settled his family near Deer Creek. The Rev. Isaac Taylor kept a school for local children through the 1870s until Blevins School opened in 1885, later organized as a formal district serving a nine-square-mile area into 1939. At its height the little community supported two general stores, two cotton gins, two churches, a blacksmith, and an ice house before slowly fading.

Richardson, TX

When the Rev. George L. Blewett's daughter Ann died in 1855, he opened this ground for family and community burials. A Cumberland Presbyterian minister, Blewett had come to Texas from Kentucky in 1853 with his family and fellow pioneers. Nine of his children lie here alongside George and his wife Nancy, and for decades it served as one of the primary burial grounds for the Richardson community.

Wortham, TX

Born near Wortham around the turn of the century, Blind Lemon Jefferson began as a street musician singing spirituals and blues to his own guitar, sharpening his craft in Dallas's Deep Ellum district. Discovered by a talent scout in the 1920s, he recorded some 79 sides in Chicago, his distinctive voice and self-composed songs shaping generations of jazz and blues artists.

Beaumont, TX

Born near Independence, Texas, in 1897 and blinded as a child, Willie Johnson learned gospel songs in church and taught himself slide guitar—his first instrument reportedly made from a cigar box. Between 1927 and 1930 he recorded thirty haunting songs for Columbia's 'Race' series, performing on sidewalks and preaching for the rest of his life from his Beaumont home. His raspy voice and searing bottleneck guitar earned him little in his lifetime, but decades after his 1945 death his music was rediscovered and widely covered. In 1977 his 'Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground' was chosen for the Voyager 1 Golden Record, carrying his sound beyond the solar system.

Brenham, TX

Opened on March 28, 1883 as the Methodist-affiliated "Mission Institute," the school was transformed by an 1887 gift from Rev. Christian Blinn of New York, whose generosity built its main hall and, in 1889, gave it his name. The present main building rose in 1906, and in 1927 Blinn became a junior college. It reflects the wave of church-founded academies that seeded higher education across late-19th-century Texas.

Carson City, NV

Built in 1879 by lumber and railroad magnate Duane L. Bliss, this was in its day the largest and most modern home in Nevada. Constructed entirely of clear lumber and square nails, it was the first house in the state fully piped for gas lighting. It stands as a monument to the fortunes made from the timber and transportation that fed the Comstock mining boom.

Union County, GA

Rising 4,458 feet in the Chattahoochee National Forest, Blood Mountain held deep meaning in Cherokee tradition as a home of the Nunnehi, the immortal "People Who Live Anywhere" who sheltered lost travelers in their highland townhouses. Cherokee lore also recalls a fierce battle between Creeks and Cherokees in nearby Slaughter Gap, said to have stained the ground before European settlers arrived.

Auburn, CA

Bloomers Cut, sliced through the earth of the Bloomer Ranch near Auburn in 1864, was one of the great engineering feats of the Central Pacific Railroad as it pushed east toward the Sierra Nevada. Crews—largely Chinese laborers whose grueling work drove the transcontinental line—carved the deep passage by hand and black powder, and it survives virtually unchanged today. It was an early and celebrated obstacle overcome on the way to linking the nation by rail.

Hampshire County, WV

A bloomery was the older, simpler way to make iron: pack a stone furnace with ore and charcoal, force in air with a bellows, and coax out a spongy 'bloom' of wrought iron to be hammered clean. Furnaces like this one worked the ore and hardwood of the Appalachian backcountry, where waterpower, timber for charcoal, and local ore deposits came together. In this corner of the Virginia frontier — land that would become West Virginia — such ironworks turned raw mountain resources into the tools, nails, and hardware a young country needed.

Hepburn Township, PA · est. 1931

Beginning in 1805, German colonists seeking religious freedom settled this Lycoming County valley, and in 1828 they built the Blooming Grove Dunkard (German Baptist Brethren) meeting house. Led by Dr. Frederick Haller, families such as the Heims, Ulmers, and Kiesses established a close-knit community of faith. The marker preserves the names of those founding households.

Blooming Grove, TX

When pioneer Richard Gowan donated land near Gradyville in 1869, the little frontier community pooled its labor to raise a single white building that served at once as church, meeting hall, and schoolhouse. As the town grew and then relocated north to meet the Cotton Belt Railroad in 1888, its schools followed—frame giving way to two-story frame, then red brick, each outgrown or condemned in turn until the modern campuses of the 1980s. The Texas Legislature chartered the independent district in 1917, and accreditation followed under superintendent S. W. Henderson.

Blooming Grove, TX

In 1869 Richard and Susan Gowan gave land on Rush Creek for a Methodist church and cemetery, and neighbors raised a white frame chapel used for both worship and school. The congregation moved to Blooming Grove in 1887 and built successive sanctuaries as the town grew, its work bolstered by the Methodist-run Central Texas College from 1899 to 1913. Pastors Clovis Chappell and E. B. Hawk, who later won national renown, led construction of the present church in 1913.

Manor, TX

Pennsylvania natives Alfred Sutton Bloor and his wife Martha raised this brick home in 1897–98 as they made their living ranching and farming the land around Manor. Built by the Elgin Press Brick Co. with turreted corners and a massive portico, the house blends Queen Anne exuberance with Colonial Revival restraint. For over sixty years it stood as a Bloor family landmark before passing from their hands in 1960.

Henderson, TX

Founded in 1879 on land donated by the Pattersons, this congregation began as Pleasant Hill Methodist Episcopal Church — the first church in the Chapman community, named for a Texas Revolution veteran who had settled the area on a 640-acre grant. Renamed Blossom Hill around 1927 and rebuilt in brick in 1959, it shared a remarkable rhythm with the neighboring Willow Springs Presbyterian Church, alternating Sundays and holding a joint July revival for roughly a century. Its community sunrise Easter service, begun in 1929, still carries on.

Blount County, AL · est. 1953

From the 1840s until the eve of the First World War, Blount Springs was one of the South's fashionable mineral-water resorts, its sulfur springs drawing well-to-do families seeking health and leisure. Guests arrived by rail to hotels and cottages for the summer season, part of a 19th-century American vogue for 'taking the waters.' The resort's long run ended in the early 20th century.

Jones County, GA

In November 1864, Blountsville lay in the path of Sherman's March to the Sea. Blair's 17th Corps, part of the army's right wing, crossed the Ocmulgee at Seven Islands and marched through Monticello and Blountsville toward Gordon, camping here on the night of the 20th. The move kept pace with the 15th Corps and Kilpatrick's cavalry along Georgia's crowded backroads.

Jones County, GA

Near here once stood Blountsville, a bustling stagecoach station and post office and home to many prominent Georgia families. It boasted Blountsville Academy, chartered in 1834, and a strong Baptist congregation, but the town suffered badly during the Civil War and eventually vanished from the map. Named for the pioneer Blount family, it survives now only in memory and this marker.

Fort Davis vicinity, TX

Held every August since 1890, this interdenominational gathering was founded by Presbyterian minister Rev. W. B. Bloys, who preached from a pulpit made of an Arbuckle Coffee crate to 48 people camped in tents and wagons at Skillman Grove, a campground since the 1850s. Ranch families brought chuck-box meals and shared them with guests, and in 1902 Baptists, Disciples of Christ, Methodists, and Presbyterians formally incorporated the Cowboys' Camp Meeting. Some 1,500 people now attend the mid-August meetings, where—by tradition—nothing has ever been sold in camp.

Cambridge, MA

The Blue Anchor Tavern stood in Cambridge from 1737 to 1837, a gathering place where the town's selectmen conducted business. Its most dramatic moment came in 1777, when the captured British general John Burgoyne — whose army had surrendered at Saratoga — was briefly held here. Like many colonial taverns, it served as an informal center of civic and political life.

Mountain View, CA

This eighteen-room farmhouse was built by Nicholas Kristmas in 1924, and by 1928 it had gained a certain local infamy. During Prohibition it reportedly housed two basement bars — one for ordinary patrons and another with a ballroom for elite clientele. The building captures the hidden nightlife of the Prohibition era in the Santa Clara Valley.

Mountain View, CA · est. 2018

Built as an eighteen-room farmhouse in 1924, this house slid into local infamy during Prohibition as the Blue and Gold Kennel Club — a speakeasy, casino, and distillery hidden behind respectable walls. Secret passages, basement bars, a third-floor casino with an armed lookout, and even a greyhound track wired to bookies nationwide made it a hub of illicit nightlife. Raids, an arrest of its gangster owner, and finally a 1938 shooting brought the federal government down on the property and ended its outlaw era.

Brenham, TX

What began in 1907 as a farmers' cooperative buying up surplus cream in the Texas countryside turned, almost by accident, into an ice cream empire. The Brenham Creamery Company churned out just two gallons of ice cream a day in 1911, but under E.F. Kruse's steady hand it was renamed Blue Bell in 1930 and built a reputation on small-town patience and quality. From this Washington County town it grew into one of the most beloved ice cream brands in America.

Jefferson, TX

Blue Bonnet Farm's raised cottage was begun in 1847, in the early years of the young Republic-turned-state of Texas. Its main wing, added in 1869, was built of heart pine cut on the home place itself. The house survives as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark near Jefferson.

Kermit, TX

Despite its name, Blue Mountain is the southern escarpment of the Llano Estacado and the highest point in Winkler County. For centuries it served as a landmark and lookout on the West Texas plains, offering fuel, shelter, and water to those who passed. A 1938 excavation of its rock shelters found mortar holes and pictographs of hands, serpents, horses, and geometric designs, evidence of long human use.

East Hanover Township, PA · est. 1949

As frontier violence flared along the Blue Mountain in the 1750s and 1760s, Pennsylvania's colonial government paid volunteer companies to shield its exposed settlers. A chain of six fortified loghouse stations stretched roughly twenty-three miles from Fort Hunter on the Susquehanna to the Swatara Creek, garrisoned in 1763–64 by the Paxton Rangers, echoing an earlier defensive line held in 1756–57. These crude forts marked the raw, contested edge of British settlement during the French and Indian War and Pontiac's uprising.

Blue Ridge, TX

Named for the blue-flowering grass that hazed its hilltop between Desert and Pilot Grove Creeks, Blue Ridge drew pioneers beginning in the 1830s, including Republic of Texas land-grantee Matthew Mowry and the area's first doctor, W.C. Holmes. The Moyers brothers opened the first store—a one-room log cabin—in the 1870s, soon joined by a school, a Masonic lodge, cotton gins, a bank, and shops around the town square. Farmers and ranchers raising cotton, corn, and cattle sustained the town, whose 1937 high school was built with WPA labor.

Reagan, TX

Organized in 1859 by eleven charter members, Blue Ridge Baptist Church held its first services in settlers' log cabins, guided by early Texas missionaries including Z.N. Morrell and Judge R.E.B. Baylor. In 1873 George Harlan deeded 28 acres — part of an 1835 Mexican land grant to his father — for a church, school, and cemetery, and the congregation has worshiped continuously ever since. Its present sanctuary dates to 1908, and its "May Day Singing" tradition has continued since 1887.

Blue Ridge, TX

Founded in 1880 on land donated by the Rev. W. L. Fagg, this Methodist congregation grew alongside the young town of Blue Ridge, even moving its building closer to downtown so it might flourish. It survived a devastating 1919 tornado and weathered the Depression when it could not afford a pastor — its women raising the salary through quilting bees, ice cream suppers, and bazaars. In time it joined a cooperative parish and continues its work today.

Nelson County, VA

The Blue Ridge Tunnel, also called the Crozet Tunnel, was bored through the Blue Ridge Mountains in the 1850s under the direction of French-born engineer Claudius Crozet for the Blue Ridge Railroad. Hand-dug by Irish immigrant laborers and enslaved workers using black powder and hand tools, the roughly mile-long passage was among the longest railroad tunnels in the world when it opened in 1858. Long abandoned after a newer tunnel replaced it, the east portal now anchors a restored trail that lets hikers walk through the engineering marvel.

Douglas County, GA

The Blue Star Memorial program began in 1945 when the National Garden Clubs set markers to honor the armed forces, their emblem taken from the blue-star service flags of the World War II home front. This Douglas County marker was sponsored by the Garden Club of Georgia with the Dogwood Garden Club of Waycross. It honors all who have defended the United States.

Decatur, GA

Blue Star Memorials date to 1945, when New Jersey garden clubs lined a road with blue-star dogwoods to honor World War II service members; the idea spread nationwide as a tribute to all who have served. This Decatur marker was sponsored by the DeKalb County Federation of Garden Clubs' Redbud District with the Garden Club of Georgia. The blue star echoes the service banners families once displayed for relatives in uniform.

Lamar County, GA

The Blue Star Memorial program began in 1945 as a highway planting honoring World War II service members and expanded into a nationwide tribute to all branches of the armed forces. In Lamar County, the Redbud District and the Johnstonville Garden Club joined the Garden Club of Georgia and the county to raise this marker. Its blue star echoes the emblem of the service flags hung in wartime homes.

Camilla, GA

The Blue Star Memorial began in 1945 as a New Jersey highway planting honoring World War II service members and grew into a national tribute to all who have served in the armed forces. In Camilla, the Garden Club of Georgia joined its Magnolia District and the Camilla Garden Club to dedicate this marker. Its blue star borrows the emblem of the wartime service flag.

Ellaville, GA

The Blue Star Memorial program began in 1945, when New Jersey garden clubs lined a highway with flowering dogwoods to honor service members — the blue star echoing the small banners families hung in their windows during World War II. The National Garden Clubs carried the idea across the country, and this marker in Ellaville, placed by the Rainbow Garden Club of the Magnolia District with American Legion Auxiliary Unit 191, extends that living tribute to all who have served in the U.S. armed forces.

Toccoa, GA

Blue Star Memorials trace to 1945, when garden clubs in New Jersey planted dogwoods along a highway to honor the armed forces, borrowing the blue star of the wartime service flags families displayed at home. The National Garden Clubs spread the program nationwide, and this Toccoa marker, sponsored by the Horti-Floral Garden Club, joins that chain of roadside tributes to everyone who has served the United States.

Crawfordville, GA

The Blue Star Memorial idea was born in 1945 from New Jersey garden clubs who honored service members by planting flowering trees along a highway, the blue star recalling the banners families hung in their windows during World War II. Adopted by the National Garden Clubs, the program reached small towns like Crawfordville, where the Sharon-Raytown Garden Club and American Legion Roy Dozier Post 8 placed this tribute to all who have defended the nation.

Glennville, GA

Blue Star Memorials began in 1945 as a garden-club tribute to service members, with the blue star drawn from the service flags that hung in American windows through World War II. Carried nationwide by the National Garden Clubs, the program left markers like this one in Glennville, placed by the Glennville Garden Club and the Oleander District, honoring all who have served in the armed forces.

Tifton, GA

The Blue Star Memorial program grew from a 1945 garden-club effort in New Jersey to honor the armed forces with flowering highways, its emblem taken from the blue-star service flags of World War II. The National Garden Clubs spread it across the country, and in Tifton the Council of Garden Clubs and the Camellia District set this marker as a lasting tribute to all who have defended the United States.

Hiawassee, GA

Blue Star Memorials date to 1945, when garden clubs honored service members with roadside plantings whose blue star came from the wartime service flags families displayed at home. In the north Georgia mountains at Hiawassee, the Laurel District's Hiawassee Garden Club and VFW Post 7807 raised this marker as a tribute to all who have defended the country.

Thomaston, GA

The Blue Star Memorial program began in 1945 as a garden-club tribute to the armed forces, its emblem drawn from the blue-star service flags of World War II and carried nationwide by the National Garden Clubs. In Thomaston, the Green Thumb Garden Club placed this marker to honor all who have served in defense of the United States.

Jesup, GA

Blue Star Memorials began in 1945, when garden clubs honored service members with flowering highways, the blue star recalling the banners hung in American windows during World War II. In Jesup, the Garden Club of Georgia with the Oleander District and the Dogwood, Jesup, and Ruby Riggins garden clubs placed this marker as a tribute to all who have defended the nation.

Helen, GA

The Blue Star Memorial program grew from a 1945 garden-club tribute to the armed forces, its blue star taken from the service flags of World War II and spread nationwide by the National Garden Clubs. In the alpine-themed town of Helen, the Soque Garden Club and the City of Helen placed this marker to honor all who have served in defense of the United States.

Boothbay Harbor, ME

This Blue Star Memorial pays tribute to the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces. The Blue Star program began in 1945, when garden clubs planted memorial highways honoring the service members of World War II; it takes its name from the blue-star service flags families hung in their windows for loved ones in uniform. The tributes later broadened to salute those who have served in all of America's wars.

Lynden, WA

Blue Star Memorials began during World War II, when garden clubs planted trees and set markers along American highways to honor the men and women serving in the armed forces — the blue star echoing the service flags that hung in family windows. The program, carried on by the National Garden Clubs, spread across the country as a tribute to all who serve. This byway marker, placed by the Lynden Garden Club, continues that tradition.

Macon, GA

This is a Blue Star Memorial, part of a nationwide program begun by the National Garden Clubs in 1945 to honor the men and women of the U.S. Armed Forces. What started as a highway beautification effort planted with dogwoods after World War II grew into thousands of these markers along roads, in parks, and at veterans' sites across the country. The blue star itself echoes the service flags that families hung in their windows for loved ones in uniform.

Mesa, AZ

This Blue Star Memorial in Mesa, Arizona, honors the men and women of the U.S. armed forces. The Blue Star program began during World War II, inspired by the blue-star service flags families hung for loved ones in uniform, and grew into a nationwide network of markers along highways and in gardens. Each one pays tribute to military service across all eras.

Williamsburg, VA

Blue Star Memorials began during World War II, when the National Garden Clubs adopted the blue star—taken from the service flags families hung in their windows for loved ones in uniform—as a symbol of remembrance. The program grew into a nationwide network of markers honoring all branches of the Armed Forces, often planted along highways and in public gardens. This dedication in Colonial Williamsburg, sponsored by the area's garden clubs in 2016, carries that mid-century tradition into the present in a city already steeped in the nation's founding history.

Meade County, SD

Since 1945, garden clubs have raised Blue Star Memorials—named for the service banners of World War II—to honor the nation's armed forces. This marker, sponsored by the Evergreen Garden Club of Hill City with the National Council of State Garden Clubs and the South Dakota Federation, stands in the Black Hills country of Meade County. It pays tribute to all who have defended the United States.

Marion, IN

The Blue Star Memorial began in 1945 as a garden-club tribute to World War II servicemembers, its emblem taken from the service flags families displayed at home. This Marion marker was sponsored by the Garden Club of Marion in cooperation with a local Veterans of Foreign Wars post. It honors the armed forces that have defended the United States.

Milpitas, CA

The Blue Star Memorial grew from a 1945 New Jersey garden-club project honoring World War II servicemembers into a nationwide roadside tribute, its blue star drawn from the service banners of the home front. This Milpitas marker, sponsored by the Green Thumb Garden Club with the local Veterans Association and the city, honors the armed forces that have defended the United States. Such markers now dot highways in every state.