Search Markers

Raymondville, TX

After Willacy County was reorganized in 1921 with Raymondville as its seat, officials held early meetings in a bank building and even borrowed a jail cage from the King Ranch. They soon commissioned architect Henry T. Phelps — who had designed the earlier courthouse in remote Sarita — to build a proper three-story courthouse and jail, completed in 1923. The understated brick building became the focus of civic pride and community life in the South Texas county.

Bellingham, WA

This monument honors the deputy surveyors of the General Land Office who, between 1856 and 1910, mapped the townships of northwest Washington from the Willamette Meridian. Working through mountains, tidewater, and forest, these crews laid down the invisible grid that turned frontier land into surveyed parcels open to settlement.

West Linn, OR

Completed in 1922 through the joint effort of Oregon City, West Linn, Clackamas County, and the state, this crossing spanned the Willamette River to link communities long divided by the water. The early twentieth century was a golden age of American bridge building, as automobiles demanded reliable river crossings. The marker records the partnership of local and state governments that made it possible.

Fort Worth, TX

This pioneer burial ground holds the descendants of Edward and Nancy Willburn, upper-South emigrants who put down roots in southwestern Tarrant County in the 1850s, when north-central Texas was still open range. The graves gathered here — a cattle-drive cowboy, Civil War veterans, and a woman who gave land for a church, school, and cemetery in Benbrook — trace a single farming and ranching community across a generation. The earliest marked grave, an infant from 1867, speaks to the hard cost of frontier settlement.

Pittsburgh, PA · est. 1995

Billy Strayhorn grew up in Pittsburgh's Homewood neighborhood and honed his gifts at Westinghouse High School before becoming one of the great composers and arrangers in American jazz. His decades-long partnership with Duke Ellington produced some of the era's most enduring music, and his composition "Take the A Train" became the Ellington orchestra's signature theme. A classically trained musician with a sophisticated ear, Strayhorn shaped the sound of the Ellington band from behind the scenes.

Nacogdoches, TX

Born enslaved in South Carolina in 1794, William "Bill" Goyens escaped to Texas in 1821 and built a life of wealth and standing as a free Black man on the East Texas frontier. He aided the Army of Texas during the 1836 revolution and served as interpreter for the Houston-Forbes Treaty with the Cherokees that same year, earning a reputation for generosity before his death at Goyens' Hill in 1856.

Franklin, NH

This square in Franklin honors a young New Hampshire soldier who served with the Machine Gun Company of the 103rd Infantry, part of the 26th 'Yankee' Division — a New England National Guard division that was among the first American units sent to France in World War I. Wounded in action on July 22, 1918, during the summer when Allied and American forces launched the counteroffensives that finally turned the war, he lingered for three months before dying of his wounds that October, just weeks before the Armistice. Naming a public square for one local man was a common way American towns turned private grief into permanent civic memory after the Great War.

Lincolnton, NC

William A. Hoke (1851-1925) rose through the North Carolina courts to serve two decades as an associate justice and one year as chief justice of the state Supreme Court, after thirteen years as a superior court judge. His birthplace stood on this site.

Gonzales, TX

This state marker honors William A. Matthews, who served the Texas cause during its war for independence as a volunteer soldier, freighter, quartermaster, and courier. Erected by the State of Texas in 1962, it remembers the varied and unglamorous roles — hauling supplies, carrying dispatches — on which a rebel army depended.

Jefferson Township, PA · est. 1955

William A. "Uncle Billy" Smith was the blacksmith whose hand-forged tools made the drilling possible when Colonel Edwin Drake struck oil near Titusville in 1859. Working the cable-tool rig he had built himself, Smith brought in the roughly 69-foot well that is remembered as the world's first successful oil well. The strike launched the petroleum age, and Smith, who died in 1890, is buried near this spot.

Wellsboro, PA · est. 1948

William A. Stone rose from a Tioga County farm to the top of Pennsylvania politics, born just southwest of here in 1846. A graduate of the Mansfield Normal School, he began practicing law in Wellsboro in 1870 before moving to Pittsburgh, serving in Congress through the 1890s and as governor from 1899 to 1903. His career spanned the Gilded Age into the new century.

Delmar Township, PA · est. 1948

Born about two and a half miles from this spot in 1846, William A. Stone became one of Tioga County's most prominent sons. Trained at the Mansfield Normal School, he opened a law practice in Wellsboro in 1870, later relocating to Pittsburgh, and went on to serve in Congress in the 1890s and as governor of Pennsylvania from 1899 to 1903. He died in 1920.

Millett, TX

Ohio-born William A. Waugh joined the 1849 gold rush to California before settling near the Cibolo Creek Crossing on the Laredo–San Antonio Road in 1856, years before La Salle County existed. He briefly served as a Texas Ranger during the border troubles known as the Cortina War, then made his mark as a merchant, district court clerk, and justice of the peace. He and his family helped build up this stretch of South Texas frontier before his death in 1901.

Wills Point, TX

Tennessee native William A. Wills moved his family to Texas in 1847 and settled along the Dallas–Shreveport Road, where the Wills home became a welcome stop for travelers. He served the young county as tax assessor-collector, road overseer, and commissioner, and by 1855 court records were already calling the area around his property 'Wills Point.' When the town was laid out along the Texas and Pacific Railroad in 1873, it took his name for good.

Santa Clara, CA

This plaque marks the 1955 dedication of a Santa Clara middle school, named in honor of a local figure and dedicated by the town's American Legion post. It dates from the great postwar wave of school building, when booming Bay Area suburbs raced to house the baby-boom generation. Veterans' groups like the Legion often anchored civic life in these fast-growing communities.

Bigfoot, TX

William A. A. Wallace—known far and wide as "Big Foot"—became a legend of the Texas frontier as a soldier, ranger, and mail rider. Through decades of hard service he helped guard the advancing line of settlement against raids and danger until his death in 1899. His nickname and exploits made him one of the most storied figures of nineteenth-century Texas.

Fort Worth, TX

Born in England in 1819, William Alfred Sanderson came to Texas in 1841, obtained a Republic of Texas land grant, and settled in Tarrant County in 1847 with his wife Isabella. He established himself as a farmer and stock raiser, helped charter the First Christian Church of Fort Worth, served as Justice of the Peace, and took part in moving the county seat from Birdville to Fort Worth. His life traces the transformation of the region from frontier grant land to organized county.

Philadelphia, PA · est. 2009

William Allen was one of colonial America's richest men, and his fortune helped build the institutions of early Philadelphia. He backed construction of the State House, now Independence Hall, and helped found Pennsylvania Hospital and the college that became the University of Pennsylvania. He established Allentown and served as Chief Justice of Pennsylvania's Supreme Court, but as revolution neared he broke with the patriot cause and remained a Loyalist until his death at his Mount Airy estate.

Boston, MA

This memorial honors William Amerena, a Boston-area soldier of Company A, 50th Infantry, killed in France on November 10, 1918 — a single day before the Armistice that ended the First World War. Dedicated by a local American Legion post and rededicated by an East Boston veterans' council in 1953, it keeps alive the name of one of the neighborhood's fallen doughboys. His death on the war's last full day is a quiet reminder that the fighting continued to the final hours.

Galveston, TX

In 1895 local banker William Cooke Skinner and his wife Adele bought this parcel for their young family, and by 1896 noted Texas architect Charles William Bulger had designed them one of his most ornate Queen Anne homes. Its facade features twin gables, a wraparound corner gallery, and a distinctive tripartite bay window, with irregularly spaced windows and surviving wooden shutters. Original interior trim and stained glass in the stairwell remain.

Forney, TX

Built in 1898 on a lot given as a wedding gift, this Queen Anne house was the home of William A. and Blanche Brooks, among Forney's leading business and civic figures. Designed by Dallas architect Charles Alexander Gill and updated with Colonial Revival touches in 1915, it shows off a round turret, ornate chimneys, and a wraparound porch typical of the town's turn-of-the-century prosperity. It survives as a signature piece of Forney's architectural heritage.

Palestine, TX

An Alabama native, William Broyles came to Texas after the Civil War—traveling by boat to Shreveport and then on foot to Palestine—where he worked as a carpenter before opening a mercantile store and, in 1878, a lumber business with its own yard, sawmill, and cabinet shop. A merchant and real estate investor, he helped drive the town's economic growth and in 1895 built this ornate home for his wife Caroline. Designed by local architect Luther McKlemurry, it blends Italianate, Queen Anne, and Second Empire styles, its fine woodwork crafted by Broyles' own lumber company.

Wylie, TX

On the eve of his 1912 marriage, William E. Stone designed this Wylie home himself, drawing on architectural pattern books and his study of Frank Lloyd Wright to shape an early bungalow that builder Carl Shuman fitted with a range of structural and mechanical innovations. Named "Stonehaven," the house sits on land held by the same family since 1850.

Springtown, TX

Bill Woody, one of Parker County's first Anglo settlers, left the Tennessee hills in December 1846 and set out for Texas on foot with his wife Elisabeth and their six-week-old son. After years of moving, the family built a story-and-a-half dogtrot home here by 1855, using hand-sawn yellow pine hauled by ox from New Orleans. In the Veal's Station community the house became a stagecoach stop, a boarding house for college students, a cobbler's shop, and a meeting place for every local congregation, and in 1858 Woody helped build a frame hall that served as church, school, and eventually Parsons College.

Galveston, TX

German immigrants Ferdinand and Dorothea Juneman put down roots in Galveston's growing East End, buying lots on Ball Avenue for three of their children and having identical cottages built by noted Galveston craftsman William Pautsch. In 1905, after Dorothea's death, their daughter Lena and her husband William Edis Smith inherited the cottage at 1709, where they raised three children. The house was damaged in the Great Storm of 1900 but survived.

San Antonio, TX

San Antonio's La Villita drew waves of newcomers, from Spanish settlers in the 1760s to German, Swiss, and French families in the 1840s. German immigrants William and Mary Ann Richter built this stuccoed limestone home in 1868-69, reportedly for its access to leeches in the neighboring acequia. Richter, licensed as barber, surgeon, and dentist, used those leeches in a practice that reflected the medical customs of the day.

Gonzales, TX

William Buckner Houston rose from De Witt County roots to become one of Gonzales's leading ranchers and civic figures during the cattle-and-cotton boom of late-19th-century Texas. In 1898 he and his second wife, Susan, raised this three-story Queen Anne on family land, its corner turret, wraparound porch, and porte cochere announcing the prosperity of the era. The house sheltered three generations of Houstons before leaving the family in 1952.

Schulenburg, TX

As one of Stephen F. Austin's "Old Three Hundred," William B. Bridgers received a Texas land grant in 1824 among the first Anglo colonists in Mexican Texas. During the Texas Revolution he served in Capt. John Alley's company, which rushed to aid Col. John H. Moore of Fayette County. A farmer, rancher, and hatmaker, he later served as a Fayette County justice of the peace and postmaster of Lyons.

Columbus, TX

William B. DeWees came from Kentucky in 1822, when Texas was still part of Mexico, and received a land grant in 1824 as one of Stephen F. Austin's 'Old 300' colonists. He worked as a blacksmith and trader, and after Columbus burned during the 1836 revolution he laid out the present town and gave land for its courthouse and school. His published letters left rare eyewitness accounts of the 'Runaway Scrape' and life in colonial Texas.

Belmont, TX

Born in Georgia in 1830, William B. Fleming came to Texas before 1850 and rode with the Texas Rangers' mounted volunteers before serving in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. Settling afterward in Gonzales County, he built a black-walnut log cabin along the Guadalupe River and turned to horse breeding. His stallion "Old Billy" founded the celebrated line of "Billy" quarter horses prized by cowboys, rodeo riders, and racers.

McKinney, TX

William B. Largent came to Collin County as a boy in 1854 and rose from frontier newcomer to prosperous livestock trader and lumber merchant. In 1876 he hauled building materials overland from Jefferson to raise this ornate Victorian home, where he and his wife Rosa raised nine children beneath its twin towers. A 1935 fire claimed the original second story, but the house endures as a token of a booming Gilded-Age North Texas.

Dallas, TX

Built in 1920 to ease crowding in Dallas's schools, this three-story building honored William B. Lipscomb, a Tennessee-born educator who led Dallas High School from 1894 until his death in 1899. Architect Herbert M. Green gave it stone quoins, castellated basement stonework, and Gothic tablets over its entrances, set amid three acres of playgrounds. Through the 1920s boom, the Depression, and World War II, the school anchored the Swiss Avenue, Munger Place, and Junius Heights neighborhoods.

Elgin, TX

Illinois-born William B. Standifer fought at San Jacinto in 1836 as a member of Capt. Jesse Billingsley's company, one of the units in Sam Houston's decisive army. His marker records a life (1819–1876) spent in the young Texas he had helped bring into being.

North Wales, PA · est. 2008

William Trego built a national reputation as a painter of American history—dramatic canvases like "March to Valley Forge" and "Rescue of the Colors"—and he did it while paralyzed in both hands, gripping and guiding his brushes through sheer determination. He learned his craft here alongside his father, the artist Jonathan K. Trego, who was both parent and mentor. Their Montgomery County home was where a remarkable talent was nurtured against long odds.

Blossburg, PA · est. 1948

William B. Wilson rose from the coal seams of Pennsylvania's northern tier to the highest councils of American government. Born in Scotland in 1862 and set to work young in the Arnot mines, he became a leading voice for organized labor in an era of brutal mine conditions and bitter strikes. In 1913 President Wilson named him the very first U.S. Secretary of Labor, a post he held through the upheavals of World War I and its aftermath until 1921. The house across the road anchored the life of a man who never forgot the pit where he started.

Moscow, TX

Born in Tennessee in 1806, William Barnett Hardin came to Texas in 1826 and carved out a plantation near Moscow as the area's first permanent Anglo settler. When the fight for Texas independence came, he served as a first lieutenant and was wounded at the Battle of San Antonio in December 1835, earning a 640-acre land grant signed by President Sam Houston. He later helped survey the region's first county roads, literally laying the lines of the community he had helped begin.

Anahuac, TX

William Barret Travis came to Texas in 1831 and was drawn into the resistance at Anahuac before rising to co-command the defense of the Alamo. When James Bowie fell ill, the 26-year-old Travis took charge, defied Santa Anna's demand for surrender, and—by legend—drew a line in the dirt asking who would stay. He and roughly 182 defenders, including Davy Crockett, died on March 6, 1836, exacting a heavy toll on Santa Anna's far larger army.

Clarksville, TX

Born in Virginia around 1787, William Becknell became one of the great pathfinders of the American frontier. A veteran of the War of 1812 who fought at the Battle of Credit Island, he organized a trading party in 1821 that reached Santa Fe just after Mexico won independence from Spain, opening legal commerce along what became the Santa Fe Trail. He later settled in Red River County, where he led a militia company protecting frontier settlers.

Clarksville, TX

William Becknell, born in Virginia in 1797, blazed the commercial route to Santa Fe in 1821, earning lasting recognition as the 'Father of the Santa Fe Trail.' He later served in the army of the Republic of Texas and settled in Red River County, where he died in 1865. The State of Texas erected this memorial marker in his honor in 1957.

Iredell, TX

William Berry Smith came to Texas from North Carolina in 1834, served as a soldier in the Texas War for Independence, and went on to fight as a veteran of the frontier Indian wars. He lived to the age of 84, dying in 1876, and was honored with this state marker in 1957.

Carroll Township, PA · est. 1951

William Bigler was born about a mile west of here in 1814 and went on to serve as governor of Pennsylvania from 1852 to 1855, then as a United States senator from 1856 to 1861. In office he fought the reckless chartering of "wildcat" banks and opposed the log-rolling omnibus bills of the day. In a remarkable family coincidence, his brother John — born on the same ground — was serving simultaneously as governor of California, giving one Pennsylvania household two statehouses at once.

Clearfield, PA · est. 2004

William Bigler rose through Pennsylvania politics from state senator to governor in the 1850s and then to the United States Senate on the eve of the Civil War. Though he opposed slavery, he belonged to the camp that hoped a compromise with the South might hold the Union together and avert war. In a striking family coincidence, his brother John was elected governor of California the same year William won Pennsylvania; William made his home here.

Newton, TX

Georgia-born William Blewett came to Texas in 1849, worked as a district surveyor, and by 1858 had opened a mercantile in Newton with his cousin. When the Civil War came, he helped raise a company of local volunteers and served as a captain in Company G, 13th Texas Cavalry. He died in Arkansas in 1862, one of the many Texans who never came home.

Windsor, NC

Born in this corner of colonial North Carolina, William Blount rose to sit in the Continental Congress and to sign the United States Constitution in 1787. President Washington named him governor of the Territory South of the River Ohio, and Blount went on to become one of Tennessee's first U.S. senators as the young nation pushed west. His career bridges the Revolutionary founding and the opening of the trans-Appalachian frontier.

Raleigh, NC

William Boylan was a leading figure in early-19th-century Raleigh, serving as president of the Raleigh and Gaston Railroad and the State Bank while publishing the newspaper Minerva from 1803 to 1810. His interests spanned finance, transportation, and the press in the young state capital. His home stood a few blocks southwest of here.

Nantucket, MA

This Nantucket house was built in 1760 by Captain William Brock, during the island's rise as the whaling capital of the world. It later belonged to Captain George Pollard, Jr., who commanded the whaleship Essex — rammed and sunk by a sperm whale in 1820, stranding its crew on the open Pacific. Herman Melville later met Pollard, and the Essex disaster helped inspire 'Moby-Dick.'

Anne Arundel County, MD

Built around 1760, the William Brown House is the finest surviving building of London Town, once a busy colonial tobacco port and ferry crossing on Maryland's South River. Ships bound for England loaded hogsheads of tobacco here, and travelers on the main road between the colonies crossed the river at this landing. The elegant brick house later served the community in other roles and today anchors the town's preserved historic area.

Austin, TX

William Carey Crane led Baylor University from 1863 until his death in 1885, devoting a career across the antebellum and Reconstruction South to education and the Baptist ministry. Born in Virginia in 1816, he became one of Texas's most influential educators. In 1937 the State of Texas reinterred his remains in this cemetery to honor that legacy.

Henderson, TX

William C. Davis came to Texas from North Carolina in 1835, settling in what was then part of Nacogdoches County during the era of the Republic of Texas. He earned a land grant for service in the frontier conflicts of the late 1830s and became patriarch of a large family, setting aside part of his homestead as a family cemetery after his first wife Caroline died in 1852.

York, PA · est. 1987

Born into slavery in 1805, William C. Goodridge built a remarkable life of enterprise in antebellum York. Tanner, barber, and newspaper distributor, he prospered enough to raise York's first five-story building and to run a small fleet of rail cars. Those same cars did quieter, riskier work: carrying freedom seekers northward along the Underground Railroad.

Minden, TX

Born in 1806, William C. Hays cast his lot with the Texas independence movement, enlisting in Kentucky in December 1835 and fighting in the decisive victory at San Jacinto in April 1836. Rewarded with land grants, he brought his family to settle the East Texas frontier, where he helped General Sam Houston negotiate with the Cherokee leader Chief Bowles and became a founding church elder and Masonic lodge master. Five of his sons later took up arms for the Confederacy.

Colerain Township, PA · est. 1951

William Cameron Sproul, born near this spot in 1870, rose from the newspaper and steel businesses of Delaware County to the governor's chair, serving from 1919 to 1923. His single term is remembered as a burst of state-building: a landmark road-construction program that laid groundwork for Pennsylvania's modern highways, the Edmonds Act reforming the public schools, and the creation of a Department of Welfare to coordinate social services. He died near Chester in 1928, his home preserved as a marked landmark.

Houston, TX

Kentucky-born William C. Swearingen sailed into Velasco aboard the schooner Pennsylvania on January 28, 1836, to fight for Texas independence, and served in Captain Amasa Turner's company at the decisive Battle of San Jacinto. He died in Houston on Christmas Eve, 1839. A tender line from a letter home — asking that his son be kissed and told "Pappy will be there in the fall" — survives him.

Houston County, TX

This marker honors William Calvert Hallmark, a Tennessee-born settler who fought in the 1836 Battle of San Jacinto, the decisive clash that won Texas its independence from Mexico. He lived out his years in Houston County, dying in 1880 among the generation of veterans whose service founded the Republic of Texas.

Waco, TX

In 1910 the family of lumber magnate and civic leader William Cameron donated 125 acres and funds for a public park honoring him, drawing some 15,000 Wacoans—more than half the city—to the dedication. Born of the era's City Beautiful movement, the park grew through further family gifts into a 416-acre expanse of scenic bluffs, springs, and river vistas, among the largest municipal parks in Texas. After decades of decline, revitalization begun in 1985 brought a zoo, expanded trails, and a centennial celebration in 2010.

Wilkes-Barre, PA · est. 2004

A prosperous Wilkes-Barre merchant, William Camp Gildersleeve turned his home and business into a refuge for freedom seekers, making him a central figure in the Underground Railroad of the Wyoming Valley. In 1853 he testified in a widely reported federal case arising from the shooting of a fugitive named William Thomas by deputy marshals—testimony that drew national notice, especially in African American newspapers. His public stand came amid the fierce national conflict over the Fugitive Slave Act.

Santa Clara County, CA

On this spot in 1848, William Campbell built a water-powered sawmill that opened the lumber industry in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The redwood-cutting that followed drew workers and commerce and gave rise to the village that grew into Saratoga. The date is telling: 1848 was the very year gold was found at Sutter's Mill, and California stood on the brink of the explosive growth that milled timber would help build.

Davilla, TX

Tennessee native William Carroll Sypert joined the army of the Republic of Texas in 1836 at just twenty, in the year Texas won its independence. After marrying and making two covered-wagon journeys between Tennessee and Texas, he settled permanently in 1849 and built a life of public service—working as a schoolteacher and musician while serving as justice of the peace, postmaster at Bryant's Station, and later Milam County Judge.

Bigfoot, TX

William Carvin Winters was born in Tennessee in 1809 and came to Texas in 1834, on the eve of its war for independence. He was among the men wounded at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, the decisive fight that won the Republic of Texas its freedom. He lived on until 1863, one of the early Anglo settlers whose lives spanned the birth and growth of Texas.

Tolland, CT

This granite tribute honors William Chambers Shepard (1883–1958), a Connecticut advocate for the careful stewardship of the state's woodlands during an era when America was waking up to the cost of unchecked logging and land use. His generation embraced the Progressive-era conservation creed of 'wise use' — the idea that forests and natural resources should be managed for the long-term public good rather than exhausted for quick profit. Shepard helped advance that cause in Connecticut, including the founding of an organized council devoted to the state's natural resources.