Search Markers

Huntsville, TX

Walker County was carved from Montgomery County in 1846, the year Texas joined the Union, and first honored Robert J. Walker of Mississippi, a leading advocate of annexation. In 1863 the county was pointedly rededicated to Captain Samuel H. Walker, the daring Texas Ranger who fell fighting in Mexico during the U.S.-Mexico War. Huntsville has served as its county seat throughout.

Huntsville, TX

Carved from Montgomery County in 1846, Walker County was first named for U.S. Senator Robert J. Walker, then rededicated to honor Samuel H. Walker, the Texas Ranger and Mexican War hero. Its seat, Huntsville, began as an Indian trading post and got its first courthouse in 1848; after fire destroyed a later one, the present courthouse rose in 1888. Today the county holds part of the Sam Houston National Forest and is home to Sam Houston State College, the oldest state-supported college in Texas.

Danville, KY

Walker Daniel founded Danville in 1781 and, two years later, became the first attorney general of the Kentucky District. Serving on a commission at the Falls of the Ohio, he helped allot the lands granted to George Rogers Clark's Illinois Regiment. His promising career was cut short in August 1784 when he was killed by Indians while traveling to visit his brother at Bullitt's Lick.

Covington, LA

Novelist Walker Percy (1916–1990) made his home in Covington, where he wrote much of his acclaimed fiction, including Lancelot, The Second Coming, Love in the Ruins, The Thanatos Syndrome, The Last Gentleman, and The Moviegoer, winner of the National Book Award. A co-founder of the Fellowship of Southern Writers and a University of North Carolina graduate, he explored faith, alienation, and the modern South. He is buried at nearby St. Joseph Abbey.

Mineral County, NV

Land around Walker Lake was set aside for 'Indian purposes' in 1859, but only on March 19, 1874, did President Ulysses S. Grant sign the executive order formally creating the Walker River Indian Reservation. Indian agent Calvin Bateman reported that year that it was home to at least six hundred Northern Paiute, urging that the government's promise 'remain inviolate.' A century later, the reservation still spanned more than 300,000 acres and remained home to the Paiute community.

Reklaw, TX

This cemetery grew from Walker's Chapel Methodist Episcopal Church, South, founded by John Walker, who reached this Cherokee County vicinity by 1839. Harvey N. Cooper deeded the church its site in 1879, and the congregation became the heart of a rural community that took the chapel's name. The oldest legible grave dates to 1879, and among the burials are veterans of conflicts reaching back to the Civil War. A memorial service still gathers here each July.

Cameron, TX

The Walkers Creek community took its name from W.H. Walker, who arrived in the 1830s, and grew as families like that of Tennessee native Richard W. Cage put down roots. In June 1884 the Cage family gave land for a cemetery, Baptist church, and school, though burials had begun here by 1880. The church later disbanded, but an association keeps the cemetery active as a link to the settlers who shaped the area.

Allen Township, PA · est. 1947

In September 1737, colonial officials invoked a disputed deed to claim as much land as a man could walk in a day and a half, and the swift Edward Marshall and his companions covered a startling distance well beyond what the Lenape had expected. Their route carried them past this point, across Hokendauqua Creek, and near a Native town, seizing far more territory than the Lenape believed they had agreed to surrender. The so-called Walking Purchase became infamous as a symbol of colonial deception.

Allen Township, PA · est. 1948

In 1737 Pennsylvania's proprietors invoked a supposed 1686 deed that promised land stretching as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. Rather than an honest stroll, Thomas Penn hired trained runners and cleared paths to push the boundary to its farthest possible limit, seizing far more Lenape land than the tribe expected. In doing so he abandoned the fairer dealings of his father, William Penn, and poisoned relations between the colony and its Native neighbors.

Springfield Township, PA · est. 1949

In 1737 Pennsylvania's proprietors invoked a supposed 1686 deed promising land as far as a man could walk in a day and a half. Thomas Penn hired the fastest walkers he could find and had a trail cleared in advance to stretch the distance to its absolute limit. The maneuver seized far more Lenape land than expected and shattered the goodwill his father, William Penn, had cultivated with Native peoples.

Wrightstown Township, PA · est. 1949

At sunrise on September 19, 1737, three chosen walkers—Marshall, Yeates, and Jennings—set out from this spot to measure the land Pennsylvania claimed under the Walking Purchase. Over a day and a half, Edward Marshall pressed on past present-day Jim Thorpe, covering some 65 miles far to the north and west. The punishing pace stretched the purchase well beyond what the Lenape believed they had agreed to.

Tinicum Township, PA · est. 1949

The 1737 Walking Purchase depended on three hired walkers, but the punishing pace took its toll. Near this point Solomon Jennings gave out after roughly 19 miles from the start at Wrightstown, leaving Edward Marshall to carry the walk to its grueling end. Jennings turned toward his home on the Lehigh River.

Wall, TX

Wall Brethren Church began in the summer of 1929 when Czech-speaking Brethren families from Granger, Taylor, and Rowena resettled in this Tom Green County community, worshipping first in homes and then in a vacated Methodist church. Services and Sunday School were conducted in Czech until the Unity of the Brethren adopted English in 1947, and the growing congregation built successive churches from 1937 onward. Traditions such as the Christian Sisters baking and selling kolaches keep the church's Czech Moravian heritage alive.

Cheltenham Township, PA · est. 1982

In the first years of William Penn's colony, a settler named Richard Wall raised a stone house on land granted directly by the founder, and in 1683 it became one of the earliest gathering places for the Society of Friends in the region. Quakers met here for prayer and business through 1702, and successive additions in the 1720s and early 1800s grew the dwelling as one family's descendants held it for a century and a half. Cheltenham Township acquired the venerable house in 1932, preserving a rare tangible link to Pennsylvania's founding generation.

Bastrop, TX

This Bastrop house began about 1840 during the ownership of Dr. L. B. Harris, in the days of the Republic of Texas, and had taken its lasting shape by the turn of the twentieth century with the addition of a jigsawn wraparound porch. Among its residents were James P. Wallace, an early Texas Ranger and soldier of the Republic's army, and brickmason James S. Holme, who supervised Civilian Conservation Corps work at nearby Bastrop State Park in the 1930s.

El Paso, TX

Built in 1903 for owner George E. Wallace, these apartments were designed by Edward Kneezell, one of El Paso's earliest architects. The two-story stucco building shows off the Mission Revival style then in vogue in the Southwest — a sweeping circular two-story arcaded veranda at one end, and small mission parapets crowning its arched entryways — offering a glimpse of comfortable urban living in the booming border city.

Seaford, DE · est. 2000

At the DuPont laboratories, chemist Wallace Carothers began pioneering studies here in 1928 into 'giant molecules,' confirming that long chains of repeating units — polymers — could be built by design. His research led swiftly to neoprene, the first American synthetic rubber, in 1932, and in 1939 to nylon, the world's first fully synthetic textile fiber. Carothers laid the scientific groundwork for the age of plastics before his death in 1937.

Reading, PA · est. 2007

The poet Wallace Stevens was born here in Reading in 1879. One of the major American poetic voices of the 20th century, he fused lush, musical language with deep philosophical questions in works like "Harmonium" and "The Auroras of Autumn." His "Collected Poems" won the Pulitzer Prize in 1955, the year he died.

Canton, TX

Settled in the 1840s, the Wallace community grew into a rural trading hub with a store and school in Van Zandt County. Its Methodist congregation was organized in 1889 by the Rev. W. D. Wheeler and eight charter members, meeting first in the schoolhouse before local benefactors funded the present sanctuary in 1910. Despite the long decline of the surrounding farm population, the country church has kept up its tradition of service.

Waller, TX

The Houston and Texas Central Railroad reached this area around 1857, giving farmers and ranchers a way to move their products to market and drawing settlers to the line. The town itself was platted in 1884 by K. H. Faulkner and named for Edwin Waller, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and the county's namesake judge. A post office, store, and school soon followed, with telephone service in 1912, utilities by 1928, and incorporation in 1947.

Richards, TX

This family burying ground began on land the Wallers bought in 1872, when young Alexander Waller became its first grave shortly after helping choose the site. His father John, a veteran of the 15th Texas Cavalry, and other Confederate veterans of the Sulphur Branch community lie here, alongside two African American families and many neighbors. The cemetery still serves the descendants of those early residents.

Hempstead, TX

Carved from Austin and Grimes counties in 1873, Waller County was named for Edwin Waller, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence and first mayor of Austin. Its soil holds a dense history: the rich Groce plantations of 1831–1874, the later home of celebrated sculptor Elisabet Ney, and the railroad town of Hempstead that became the county seat. Since 1876 it has been home to Prairie View A&M, one of Texas's foundational institutions for Black higher education.

Douglas County, NV

In 1862, along the Carson branch of the emigrant trail, David and Harriet Walley developed the hot springs bubbling up along this fault line into a $100,000 spa complete with beds, a ballroom, and gardens. The mineral waters—ranging from 136 to 160 degrees—were promoted as a cure for rheumatism and other ailments, drawing visitors until the resort burned in 1935. A century later the same thermal source drew engineers testing for geothermal power.

City of Glen Cove, NY

This memorial fountain in Glen Cove honors Lieutenant Commander Norman "Homer" Wallin, a naval officer remembered by his family with a gift to the community. Public drinking fountains have long been a way for families and civic groups to combine a practical amenity with a lasting tribute to someone they lost. The dedication ties the memory of one man's naval service to the everyday life of the town.

Wallingford, CT

Set aside as the town common in Wallingford's original 1670 plan, this green — long called the 'Parade Ground' — is as old as the town itself. Puritan founders placed the common and meetinghouse here to embody the shared faith and purpose behind their migration; by the 1800s it had become the central park of a bustling industrial town.

Wallingford, CT

The land here was bought from Montowese in 1638 and settled in 1670 by planters from New Haven and Stratford, who named it for an English town. Fiercely patriotic — home to a 'True Sons of Liberty' chapter and to Declaration signer Dr. Lyman Hall — the town later traded its farming roots for lasting fame in the silverware industry.

Austin County, TX

This burial ground, also called the Protestant Cemetery, has served the Wallis area since the 1890s. The community began as Bovine Bend, founded by Kentucky settlers William and Lydia Guyler in 1859; when the Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railway ran a spur through in 1880, Guyler sold his land, moved to the new town, and it was renamed for the railroad's chief engineer, Joseph Wallis. Farmers, merchants, railroad workers, a physician-minister, and veterans dating to the Civil War rest here beneath obelisks and interior fencing.

Mont Belvieu, TX

The Wallis family came from Louisiana in 1824 and settled on this hill in 1825, their home a welcome stop for travelers on the early Texas frontier. The graveyard began with the 1830 burial of young Elijah Wallis and grew into a family and community cemetery, holding at least one veteran of the Battle of San Jacinto among its roughly 25 graves. By the 1870s, swarming ant colonies made the ground unusable, and burials shifted to a new cemetery nearby.

Wallis, TX

In 1890 landowner M.L.H. Harry deeded ground to a group of trustees to establish a Methodist congregation in the young town of Wallis. The church counts its founding from 1893, when members took out a loan to build their first sanctuary under their first pastor, A.S. Blackwood. A century later, in 1993, the congregation marked its hundredth anniversary as a fixture of community life.

Wallis, TX

When the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway ran a spur through this Austin County settlement in 1880, the community took the name Wallis after a rail executive and quickly grew. In 1906 seven local businessmen pooled a $10,000 investment to charter the Wallis State Bank, which soon outgrew its frame quarters for a two-story brick building whose upper floor housed the justice of the peace and a Masonic lodge. Its ledgers, with loans secured by tractors, cows, and horses, trace more than a century of small-town Texas commerce.

Wallisville, TX

In the late 1870s, settler Albert Gallatin Van Pradelles set aside a plot of Chambers County land to bury his three-year-old grandson, and within a month the ground was recorded as a legal cemetery. Sixteen family lots were surveyed in January 1879 and purchased by locally prominent pioneer families, and by 1884 Van Pradelles himself was laid to rest among them. Kept in the family for more than a century, the burial ground passed to the Wallisville Cemetery Association in 1986.

Austin, TX

Organized in a schoolhouse in 1856 with just ten members, this rural congregation reflects the frontier faith of antebellum central Texas. Locally quarried stone and lumber hauled by ox-wagon from Bastrop went into its original building, which did double duty as a schoolhouse in its early years. Such shared church-and-school structures were common where settlements were young and resources scarce.

Azle, TX

Organized in 1867 under the Rev. J. C. Power, this Baptist congregation first met in a log cabin and, in the 1870s, in a larger cabin on Walnut Creek that served as both church and school in the community of Parker's Shop, now Reno. The congregation moved nearby and built a frame sanctuary in the late 1880s, expanding onto adjacent land in 1947. What began as a rural frontier church grew steadily alongside its community.

Diana, TX

Pioneer settlers organized a Baptist congregation at Walnut Creek around 1855, and in 1856 acquired more than seventeen acres for a sanctuary and cemetery, whose oldest marked grave dates to 1870. Over the generations the church added Sunday school facilities and a parsonage, replacing its old sanctuary with a brick building in 1978. It remains an active congregation and steward of its historic frontier cemetery.

Fort Worth, TX

Established around 1881 on the edge of a rapidly growing Fort Worth, Walnut Creek Cemetery holds the graves of the farm and ranch families who settled Tarrant County in the decades after the Civil War. Fort Worth in that era was a booming cattle-drive town at the northern reach of the Chisholm Trail, and burying grounds like this one anchored the rural communities on its outskirts. The state's Historic Texas Cemetery designation in 2009 recognized its enduring role in local memory.

Bremond, TX

The Walnut Creek community took root in the 1850s as farming families settled this stretch of Robertson County. Its cemetery is said to have begun before 1869 with the burial of a horse trader's young daughter beneath a cedar tree, on land given by settler J. Grant Taylor, who later donated acreage for a burial ground, meetinghouse, and school. Church congregations and classes gathered here until the school consolidated with Bremond during World War II.

Athens, TX

Farm families settled along Walnut Creek as early as 1850, raising grains, cotton, cane, and livestock in a community that gradually built the institutions of rural life. Worship began under a brush arbor in 1859; a Methodist sanctuary followed in 1884, an adjoining cemetery soon after, and a schoolhouse in 1899 that scheduled classes around the growing season. As nearby Athens grew and rail bypassed the settlement, Walnut Creek faded, but its cemetery—designated a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2001—still marks where the community stood.

Walnut Grove, TX

Founded in 1846 by the Rev. J.N. Vance as the Union Congregation, this fellowship took the name Walnut Grove in 1858 and built its first sanctuary on donated land in 1869. Camp meetings — the exuberant open-air revivals characteristic of frontier religion — were often held on its grounds. The plain frame church in use today dates to 1886, a survivor of the country churches that anchored rural Collin County.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2008

At the dawn of the 20th century, engineers were still learning what reinforced concrete could do, and Philadelphia answered with a leap of faith. Completed in 1908, the Walnut Lane Bridge vaulted across the Wissahickon gorge as the largest concrete arch span in the world, a showpiece of Progressive-era confidence in modern materials. By knitting Germantown to Roxborough it collapsed a half-day journey into a matter of minutes, and it still carries traffic today.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2008

When it opened in 1908, the Walnut Lane Bridge was hailed as an engineering marvel — the world's largest concrete arch bridge at a moment when reinforced concrete was still a novel gamble. Reformers praised its blend of utility and grace as it linked Germantown and Roxborough, shrinking a half-day trip to minutes and quickening trade and neighborly ties. More than a century later it remains a working artery of the city.

Harrisburg, PA · est. 1996

Opened in 1890 by the People's Bridge Company, the Walnut Street Bridge is the oldest surviving crossing of the Susquehanna at Harrisburg and one of the last great multi-span Phoenix truss bridges in the country. Locals nicknamed it "Old Shakey," and it carried toll-paying traffic until 1957. The devastating 1972 flood closed it to cars, and a later flood in 1996 swept away three of its fifteen spans, leaving it a beloved pedestrian relic.

Sherman, TX

Completed in 1920, this classical revival sanctuary served the Walnut Street Church of Christ in Sherman, a congregation with roots reaching back to the 1850s. Built as the members' third house of worship, the two-story raised structure boasts a grand portico, central stairway, and 48 stained glass windows. It was named a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark in 1986.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2008

Rising in Philadelphia during the Revolution, the Walnut Street Prison held a turbulent mix of humanity from 1775 to 1838 — common felons, debtors, captured British prisoners of war, and loyalist Tories alike. Its crowded cellblocks stretching from Walnut to Locust Street were the scene of repeated riots, but the institution also became a proving ground for early American ideas about punishment and reform. It was eventually superseded by the vast, radial Eastern State Penitentiary.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 1996

When the Walnut Street Theatre opened its doors in 1809, the United States was barely a generation old and professional theater was still a novelty on the young republic's stages. It has raised its curtain continuously ever since, making it the oldest playhouse still in use in the English-speaking world and a stop for celebrated performers from both sides of the Atlantic. Now a National Historic Landmark, it survived changing tastes, fires, and centuries of competition to keep the footlights burning.

Bay Lake, FL

This bronze dedication plaque marks the 1971 opening of Walt Disney World near Orlando, the sprawling resort that transformed Central Florida's cattle-and-citrus flatlands into the world's most-visited vacation destination. It honors Walt Disney (1901–1966), the animator and showman whose earlier Disneyland proved the theme-park concept, and whose vision for a far larger 'Florida Project' was carried out after his death by the company he built. The plaque frames the resort as a tribute to his philosophy of imaginative, family-centered entertainment.

Austin, TX

Architect Roger Q. Small designed this 1935 Austin residence for Walter and Mae Simms, whose Simms Fish Market had trucked Gulf Coast seafood to Central Texas hotels and restaurants since 1915. The simplified Classical Revival house tucks a five-bay garage beneath its main floor behind a rough-cut limestone façade—an integration of the automobile into the home that would not become common until after World War II. Its butler brick walls and tall multi-light windows mark it as a refined product of its era.

Tunkhannock, PA · est. 2000

At the 1900 Paris Olympic Games, Tunkhannock's Walter Tewksbury turned in one of the most remarkable performances of the early modern Games, taking home five medals across track and field, including two golds and a share of the world record in the 100-meter dash. A University of Pennsylvania sprint champion, he earned a dental degree in 1899 and returned home to practice dentistry, coach, and serve his community. His name endures in both the National Track & Field and Pennsylvania Sports Halls of Fame.

West Haven, CT

In the autumn of 1942, with the United States newly drawn into World War II, the community of West Haven set aside this park to honor Walter H. Brennan, a local man remembered for his generosity and public spirit rather than for any office or fame. Dedicating green space to a private citizen "in appreciation of unselfish service to his fellow man" was a familiar way early-twentieth-century American towns thanked the neighbors who quietly held community life together. The plain, heartfelt language of the dedication reflects the civic values of the New England home front during that era.

Arlington, MA

In the old New England town of Arlington, just northwest of Boston, a public playing field was set aside and formally dedicated on August 7, 1970, to the memory of Walter Hurd, whose life spanned the years 1915 to 1944. His death in 1944 fell within the years of the Second World War, an era when communities across the United States absorbed the loss of young men in the prime of life. Rather than mark such a loss with a solemn stone alone, towns like Arlington often answered it by naming a field, a park, or a square, folding a neighbor's memory into the everyday life of the place.

Village of Boonville, NY

The village of Boonville, tucked in the foothills where the Adirondacks meet the Black River country, was the birthplace of Walter D. Edmonds, one of America's most popular historical novelists. His 1936 bestseller "Drums Along the Mohawk" dramatized the hard lives of frontier families in New York's Mohawk Valley during the American Revolution, when raids and hardship tested the settlers who stayed. The book struck such a chord that Hollywood brought it to the screen in 1939, planting Edmonds's vision of the Revolutionary frontier firmly in the national imagination.

Forney, TX

The corner drugstore was once the beating heart of small-town American life, and few embodied it longer than Walter Dickson Adams of Forney. Arriving as a teenager in 1887, he bought the local drugstore in 1893 and ran it for an astonishing sixty-eight years, moving it to Main Street in 1901 and serving a term as mayor in 1912. The business, tracing its roots to an 1878 predecessor, remained a going concern that relocated to this site in 1976.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2014

Walter Golaski, a Polish-American engineer and Drexel graduate, began his career designing machinery for the knitting industry and earned numerous patents. In the 1960s he applied that expertise to medicine, perfecting the Dense Knit Dacron Vascular Prosthesis, the first practical artificial blood vessel. His workshop stood here for many years, and he worked to foster cultural exchange between Poland and the United States.

Orlando, FL · est. 2018

This twenty-foot concrete piece is a surviving fragment of the "brise-soleil" sunscreen wall that wrapped Orlando's "Round Building," a modernist landmark that stood across from City Hall from 1964 to 2014. The building was designed by architect Robert Murphy, a Harvard graduate who studied under Walter Gropius, the founder of the Bauhaus. Its salvaged curtain-wall segment preserves a tangible link to mid-century modern design in central Florida.

Richmond, TX

Born into slavery in North Carolina in 1840 and brought to Texas around 1860, Walter Moses Burton learned to read and write from his enslaver and, after emancipation, bought land from that same man. He became a successful farmer and in 1869 was elected sheriff of Fort Bend County; in 1873 he won a seat in the Texas Senate, serving four terms for a multi-county district before returning to farming and local politics.

Lampasas, TX

Walter Acker joined the Confederate Army at sixteen in Paulding, Mississippi, then came to Lampasas in 1875 as a young attorney. He built a long public career in Texas — district attorney, state representative, and mayor — before moving to Harris County and serving three more terms in the legislature. In 1930 he was honored as the last Confederate veteran to sit in the Texas Legislature, and he died at the Confederate Home in Austin.

Terrell, TX

Walter Payne Allen, a banker who helped organize and later led Terrell's American National Bank, married America "Meck" Cartwright in 1893 and became a leading civic figure—serving as alderman and commissioner and helping bring a Royal Air Force training center to town during World War II. In 1928 the couple built this Tudor Revival house, designed by the Dallas firm Fooshee and Cheek, with half-timbering, decorative masonry, and an overhanging jettied second floor. It stands as a Recorded Texas Historic Landmark.

Marshall, TX

Walter Paye Lane's life traced the whole arc of nineteenth-century Texas at war. He fought as a soldier in the Texas War for Independence, rose to major in the Mexican War, and served as a brigadier general in the Confederate Army. The State of Texas erected this marker in his honor in 1962.

Carthage, TX

Historian Walter Prescott Webb was born near this site in 1888 before his family moved to the edge of West Texas, where the stark new country set him thinking about how the frontier shaped America. He earned all his degrees at the University of Texas and taught there for 45 years, producing landmark works like "The Great Plains" and "The Texas Rangers." He became the first southwesterner to preside over the American Historical Association.

Breckenridge, TX

The historian Walter Prescott Webb arrived in Stephens County at age four and spent seventeen formative years absorbing the frontier life that would shape his landmark theories on the Great Plains in American history. His father's moves between rural teaching posts exposed the boy to the region's varied geography, while neighbors supplied a wealth of frontier lore. Encouraged by a New York benefactor, Webb left in 1909 to attend the University of Texas, launching a distinguished scholarly career.

Lincoln County, NV

This roadside memorial in the desert of Lincoln County honors Walter L. Ray, who gave his life in service to his country on January 5, 1967. That date falls during the height of American involvement in the Vietnam War, when service members from small Western communities were among those sent overseas. The lone marker keeps his name and sacrifice before travelers on the Nevada highway.