Historic Markers in Texas

Clifton, TX

South Carolinians William and Rutha Gary brought their family west and settled here by 1852, when the land still belonged to McLennan County. When Bosque County was formed in 1854, William Gary became one of its first five commissioners, and several Garys voted in its first election. The couple's graves, William's in 1855 and Rutha's in 1868, became the seed of a small family and community cemetery that filled slowly until the last burial in 1932.

Tyler, TX

In 1907 school officials bought two acres from Horace Chilton and the next year raised an eight-room stone schoolhouse, naming it for early settler and education advocate Franklin N. Gary. The original building gave way to a new structure in 1924, with further additions as enrollment grew. Generations of Tyler students passed through its classrooms, many going on to lead the community, and the school still serves the public today.

Post, TX

Created on paper in 1876 and attached to Borden County until it could stand on its own, Garza County was finally organized on July 8, 1907, at the OS Ranch — where, by local legend, even the horses "voted" to reach the 75 ballots required. The first court convened under a tent before the first courthouse was built in 1908, and this marker honors the pioneer men elected its first officials.

Post, TX

This West Texas county carries the name of the Garza family, among the Canary Islanders who helped settle San Antonio in 1731—the first organized civil colony in Spanish Texas. Long open cattle range after its own settlement, the county turned to farming after 1910 and welcomed textile mills in 1912, with the town of Post serving as its seat.

Post, TX

Garza County was created in 1876 but not formally organized until 1907, at the urging of cereal magnate C. W. Post. As cotton fueled the region's growth, citizens funded a new courthouse in 1922, hiring Amarillo architect Guy Carlander. Completed in 1923 in reinforced concrete with brick and cast-stone detailing, it stands as a late but fine example of Prairie School design on the Texas plains.

Justiceburg, TX

After a string of failures from 1911 to 1919, Garza County's first producing oil well came in on the J.M. Boren property near Justiceburg in 1926, drilled by the Phelps, Caldwell and Blackwell Oil Company. That single well produced 1,641 barrels before being abandoned in 1932, the same year four more wells came in south of Post and a refinery rose nearby. The county's fields would eventually yield more than 85 million barrels.

Post, TX

Excavated in a 1959 highway salvage dig, this archeological site gave its name to the Garza point—a thin, finely worked triangular arrowhead with a notched base and serrated edges. Alongside the points, archeologists found more than two hundred artifacts around ancient cooking hearths: bone awls, wolf-tooth pendants, tubular beads, knives, scrapers, and drills. The Garza people who left them were roving hunters who camped here before 1500 A.D.

Floresville, TX

This burial ground is one of three that served the old Lodi Settlement, and most of those laid to rest here were Tejanos—Texans of Mexican descent. The earliest known grave, that of Polonio Garcia, dates to 1883, and the cemetery also holds veterans across generations of American wars, from Civil War soldier Juan de la Garza to World War I veterans Vicente Garza and Jesus Valdez. Its crosses, Spanish-language grave slabs, and brick enclosure—laid in bricks like those of the Wilson County Courthouse—still mark an active, living memorial.

Quitaque, TX

Cotton farmers began settling this High Plains area in 1903, and a new water well in 1906 drew still more. With the nearest gin ten miles away in Turkey, three partners bought a gasoline-powered engine and built their own gin here, ginning the first bale in April 1907. The gin gave rise to a town literally named Gasoline, which withered after the railroad bypassed it in 1927; the gin itself burned in 1938.

Henderson, TX

An oil boom in the early 1930s swelled the local population and prompted formation of the Gaston Independent School District in 1931. Dallas architects designed an elementary and two-story high school, completed with a football field in 1932, and the campus grew through the decade with a gymnasium, auditorium, cafeteria, and shop, its native-stone landscaping finished by the WPA. Students went on to win regional titles and honors—including a Rhodes Scholarship—before the district merged into West Rusk County ISD in 1965.

Gonzales, TX

The Gates family came to Texas as part of Stephen F. Austin's original colony, and this cemetery sits on land granted to Samuel H. Gates for service in the Texas War for Independence. The first burial, in 1863, was his son Samuel A., a Confederate soldier who died soon after returning from imprisonment at Vicksburg; another son, Joseph Dillard Gates, served in one of Texas's first Confederate units before a career in county affairs. A later descendant taught on Indian reservations and helped organize the cemetery association.

Plainview, TX

Gates Hall was the original administration building of Wayland Baptist College, raised in 1909–1910 in the young town of Plainview. The land came from Dr. J.H. Wayland, a physician who settled here in 1891 and lent the college his name. The hall itself honors the school's first president, Dr. I.E. Gates, in whose term it was built.

Port Arthur, TX

John Warne "Bet a Million" Gates, an Illinois-born financier famed for promoting barbed wire, helped drive the early growth of Port Arthur after the coastal oil boom drew him in around 1900. A major backer of the company that became Texaco, he funded a business college, hospital, and hotel, and in 1909 set aside land for a public library. His plans stalled after his death in 1911, but his widow Dellora and local citizens saw the library completed and dedicated in 1917–18.

Port Arthur, TX

The financier and philanthropist John W. Gates set aside this Port Arthur land for a public library, and after his death in 1911 his widow Dellora saw the project through to completion in 1917. Designed by the prestigious New York firm Warren & Wetmore — architects of Grand Central Terminal — the Classical Revival building brought big-city refinement to a Gulf Coast industrial town. Deeded to the city in 1918, it now serves as part of Lamar University at Port Arthur.

Gatesville, TX

Gatesville became the seat of newly created Coryell County in 1854, on a townsite donated by Indian trader Richard Grant and named for the nearby Old Fort Gates (1849–1852), a post established for protection against Native raids. The town grew slowly amid intermittent raids until a period of strong progress from 1870 to 1882, capped when the St. Louis & Southwestern railroad ran a spur line in 1882 to a jubilant public welcome. With the railroad came new homes, businesses, and even a frontier opera house.

Covington, TX

Founded around 1860 by Covington's founder Col. James Gathings and his brother Philip, Gathings College drew over 200 students and added a military department to prepare young men for Civil War service. While most of Confederate Texas's twenty-five colleges shuttered for want of teachers and books, this one stayed open—sustained by Gathings's mills, tannery, and workshops. He gave flour, meat, and shoes to soldiers' needy families and outfitted army units at his own expense.

Kerrville, TX

When crews built the Spur 98 bridge over the Guadalupe River in 2004, they uncovered an extraordinary Native American site with stone tools and projectile points older than 7,500 years—predating Egypt's earliest dynasties. For thousands of years, small bands of hunter-gatherers returned to these banks to harvest fruits, nuts, and roots and to hunt bison, deer, and rabbit, cooking in limestone ovens they built themselves. Radiocarbon dating shows people camped here across more than six millennia in a cooler, wetter Edwards Plateau.

Hillsboro, TX

German immigrant Charles Gebhardt opened Hillsboro's first bakery in 1901 and moved it into this handsome brick building when it was finished in 1905, living with his family on the second floor. The structure blends Romanesque and Italianate touches, with arched upper windows, decorative brickwork, and corner turrets. After its baking days, the building housed millinery and barber shops.

Sublime, TX

Near this spot stood Strunksville, a hamlet of store, saloon, and gin founded by German settler Diedrich Strunk in 1854. In 1868 Pastor Christoph Geiger—trained at the Basel mission and sent to gather scattered frontier congregations—organized a Lutheran church here, and the community began burying its dead in the adjoining cemetery. The congregation's church was later dismantled and hauled by oxcart to Sublime in 1905, but families still return to tend one of the area's oldest graveyards, a last remnant of a vanished town.

Milam, TX

Robert and Nancy Agnes Gellatly left Dundee, Scotland, in the mid-1830s and crossed the Atlantic to the young Republic of Texas, bringing their son and Nancy's father, William Sturrock, with them. Robert earned a land grant for his service in the Republic's army and went on to hold nearly every office Sabine County had to offer — justice of the peace, sheriff, tax collector, and chief justice. The family cemetery began in sorrow in 1863 with the death of their daughter Anna, and four generations of Gellatlys now rest here.

Austin, TX

Born in Virginia in 1827, Alexander Watkins Terrell came to Texas in 1852 and served as a district judge before the Civil War, then rose to brigadier general in the Confederate army by 1865. In the decades after the war he became one of the state's most influential public men—serving thirty years in the Texas Legislature and, in the 1890s, as U.S. Minister to Turkey. He died at Mineral Wells in 1912.

Hempstead vicinity, TX

In the uneasy months after the Civil War, the U.S. sent a large force into Texas to restore order and to counter French-backed forces in Mexico. From August to October 1865, George Armstrong Custer and his cavalry — with his wife Elizabeth, "Libbie" — camped on the Liendo plantation of Leonard Groce, heir to "Old 300" cotton baron Jared Groce. Custer's insistence that his troops respect Texans and their property helped keep relations with local families cordial.

Austin, TX

George W. Terrell arrived in Texas in 1840, during the brief life of the independent Republic of Texas, and rose almost at once to its highest offices — associate justice of its Supreme Court, Secretary of State, and Attorney General. As chargé d'affaires he carried the young nation's case to the courts of England, France, and Spain in 1844–45, the very years annexation to the United States was being decided. He died in Austin in 1846, months after Texas became a state.

Greenville, TX

Erected in 1885–1887 for the pioneer Harrison family, this was the first two-story brick house in Greenville, built in a typical Victorian style with brick fired at the nearby "Puddin' Hill" farm. That land had been settled by the Horton family in 1846, and in 1929 Hal C. Horton—an Army colonel and National Guard general—bought and remodeled the house using walnut from the old homestead. It was recorded as a Texas Historic Landmark in 1969.

Independence, TX

James Willie was a Georgia-born lawyer who rose in the young state of Texas to become its Attorney General in 1856–57, helping shape the legal footing of a state barely a decade removed from its own republic. When secession came, he cast his lot with the Confederacy, serving as an officer until his death in Houston in 1863. His life traces the arc from antebellum statecraft to the Civil War that consumed it.

Canadian, TX

In the winter of 1874–75, the U.S. Army swept the Texas Panhandle in the campaign now known as the Red River War, and General Nelson Miles ran part of it from a dugout post near here. His columns fought eight engagements that season and, in November 1874, recovered two of the captive German sisters, Addie and Julia, with their older sisters freed the following February. From this rough headquarters Miles nominated soldiers for the Medal of Honor, among them the celebrated scout Billy Dixon, before Fort Elliott rose in 1875 to carry on the work.

Canadian, TX

The Gene Howe Wildlife Management Area spreads over some 6,000 acres of sandhills, meadows, and woodland along the north bank of the Canadian River. Acquired by the State of Texas in 1951, it honors Amarillo newspaper publisher Eugene A. Howe, a conservationist who served nearly two decades on the Texas Game and Fish Commission. Created as a research and demonstration ground for game management—white-tailed deer, wild turkey, quail, and waterfowl—it developed and shared better wildlife practices with landowners across the High Plains.

Burnet, TX

Adam Rankin Johnson made his name as a Confederate cavalry raider, riding with Nathan Bedford Forrest before commanding his own Partisan Rangers on daring strikes behind Union lines in Kentucky and Indiana — including the audacious capture of Newburgh with a dozen men and a fake 'cannon' made from a stovepipe. Blinded by a gunshot wound in 1864, he returned to Burnet County and, sightless, became one of frontier Texas's great builders: a mail contractor, surveyor, and the founder of Marble Falls, whom he championed for its water power on the Colorado River. Erected by the State of Texas in 1963 as a memorial to Texans who served the Confederacy.

Sanderson, TX

Virginia-born Alexander W. Terrell came to Texas in 1852 and served as a district judge before entering Confederate service in 1863, commanding Terrell's Texas Cavalry. Assigned to protect the cotton trade that was the South's economic lifeblood, he fought in the 1864 Red River Campaign to repel a Union invasion of Texas and was wounded at the Battle of Mansfield. Rather than surrender, he briefly went to Mexico, then returned to a distinguished career as a legislator who authored Texas's primary election law and as U.S. Minister to Turkey. The marker also stands as a state memorial to all Texans who served the Confederacy.

Meridian, TX

Alison Nelson (1822–1862) packed several lives into forty years — Georgia legislator and mayor of Atlanta, a general in Cuban liberation forces in 1850, and, after reaching Texas in 1856, a fighter in the state's Indian campaigns. He served as a delegate to the 1861 Secession Convention, then raised and led the 10th Texas Infantry, repulsing a Federal assault at Devall's Bluff, Arkansas, before dying of illness in camp in October 1862.

Comanche, TX

Connecticut-born and Yale-educated, Ashbel Smith studied medicine in France before coming to Texas in 1837, where he served as the Republic's surgeon-general, diplomat to England and France, and its last Secretary of State. He fought in the Mexican War, commanded the 2nd Texas Infantry in the Civil War, and later became the first chairman of the University of Texas Board of Regents, shaping the young state's ideals of scholarship.

Brady, TX

Ben McCulloch's life reads like a catalog of the nineteenth-century frontier: he followed Davy Crockett to Texas, commanded a cannon at San Jacinto in 1836, scouted behind enemy lines in the Mexican War, and even served as a California gold-rush sheriff. When the Civil War came, he was made a Confederate brigadier general and led troops in Arkansas and Indian Territory, winning at Wilson's Creek. He was killed at the Battle of Pea Ridge in 1862.

Kountze, TX

Braxton Bragg (1817–1876), North Carolina–born and a veteran of the U.S. Army in the Mexican War under Zachary Taylor, became a Confederate general who won renown capturing guns and prisoners at Shiloh in 1862 and in the Southern victory at Chickamauga in 1863. Later a military adviser to President Jefferson Davis, he was captured and paroled after the surrender, then settled in Galveston as chief engineer building the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railway. When that line reached this area a junction was named Bragg — a railroad and oil-field town of 1901–1934 that is now a ghost site.

Dallas, TX

This static display honors the General Dynamics YF-16 "Fighting Falcon," the lightweight fighter prototype first flown in the 1970s and built in the Fort Worth area. The YF-16 pioneered fly-by-wire flight controls and an agile, cost-effective design that won a landmark Air Force competition, launching one of the most widely produced jet fighters in the world.

Italy, TX

Born in North Carolina in 1796, Edward H. Tarrant fought in the War of 1812 and later served in the Congress of the Republic of Texas while commanding frontier troops in campaigns against Native peoples. He died in Parker County in 1858, and his remains were reburied more than once before finding their final resting place in Fort Worth, in the county that bears his name. His life spanned the founding decades of Anglo settlement in Texas.

Fort Worth, TX

Edward H. Tarrant fought under Andrew Jackson at the Battle of New Orleans in 1814 before moving west, serving in the Republic of Texas Congress and rising to brigadier general in its militia. He led Texas Rangers at the 1841 Battle of Village Creek, helped negotiate treaties with Texas Indian tribes at Bird's Fort in 1843, and later sat in the state legislature and defended the frontier from Fort Belknap. Reinterred here in 1928 by the Daughters of the Republic of Texas, he gave his name to Tarrant County.

Arlington, TX

On May 24, 1841, General Edward H. Tarrant led about seventy men in an attack on several Indian villages along what became known as Village Creek, seizing horses and recovered plunder. Twelve Native people were reported killed and many wounded; on the Texan side, Captain John B. Denton was killed and Captains Henry Stout and Griffin wounded. The clash was one of the sharpest frontier engagements of the Republic of Texas era.

Amarillo, TX

Ernest O. Thompson left college for World War I and earned a battlefield promotion to lieutenant colonel—said to be the youngest in the U.S. Army—before making his name as a reforming Amarillo mayor. Appointed to the Texas Railroad Commission in 1932, he enforced oil proration during the great East Texas boom, backed by the Texas Rangers, and became a world authority on petroleum conservation, helping found the Interstate Oil Compact Commission. His work made Texas a decisive voice in the global oil trade.

Alvord, TX

Born in Alvord, Ernest O. Thompson left college for World War I and earned a battlefield commission as one of the army's youngest lieutenant colonels. As a Texas Railroad Commissioner from 1932 to 1966, he strode into the East Texas oil boom to enforce production limits—shutting down non-complying wells at personal risk—and became a world authority on petroleum conservation, helping found the Interstate Oil Compact Commission.

Granbury, TX

Erected by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, this monument honors Brigadier General H.B. Granbury and the soldiers who served under him during the Civil War. Granbury, for whom the town is named, was a Texas-born Confederate officer who rose to brigade command before being killed in action in 1864. Monuments like this one, raised by the UDC in the decades after the war, shaped how Southern communities publicly remembered the Confederacy.

Goliad, TX

Ignacio Zaragoza was born on this Goliad site in 1829, when the settlement was still known as Bahía del Espíritu Santo and the region belonged to Mexico. Rising as a soldier, he helped topple the dictator Santa Anna and, on May 5, 1862, led a poorly armed Mexican force to a stunning victory over veteran French troops at the Battle of Puebla. That triumph against Napoleon III's invasion gave Mexico the holiday of Cinco de Mayo.

Eden, TX

Raised near Eden after his family moved there in 1906, Ira C. Eaker enlisted the day after the U.S. entered World War I and rose through the Army's fledgling aviation program, testing instruments and pioneering flight procedures between the wars. In World War II he organized and led the U.S. Eighth Army Air Force, coordinating round-the-clock bombing of Germany with the RAF and sometimes flying on missions himself before finishing the war at the Pentagon.

Coldspring, TX

General James Davis lived a life braided through America's early wars and Texas's founding. A U.S. Army officer at the Battle of New Orleans in the War of 1812, he came to Texas in 1834 and served the young Republic on Sam Houston's staff in 1836, later as adjutant-general and a member of its Congress and 1845 constitutional convention. In 1848 he donated the land for the church that became First Baptist of Coldspring.

Henderson, TX

General James Smith (1792–1855), a South Carolina native who fought for the United States in the War of 1812, came to Texas in 1835 and returned east to raise troops for the war of independence before settling as a co-founder of Henderson. His long career of arms carried him through the Republic's Indian wars, the Regulator-Moderator feud of the 1840s, and the Mexican War, and in peace he served as the first judge of the East Texas District and as a legislator, with nearby Smith County named in his honor. He rests on this hill, as he wished, in sight of the courthouse, beside his wife Hannah.

Palacios, TX

Missouri-born John Augustus Hulen came to Texas as a boy and rose from a militia unit into a long military career, serving in the Spanish-American War and the Philippines, where he earned a Silver Star. In World War I he won a French Croix de Guerre and the U.S. Distinguished Service Medal. He helped establish Camp Palacios in 1925—renamed Camp Hulen in his honor—and retired a lieutenant general in 1935.

Longview, TX

John Gregg came to Texas from Alabama in 1854 and rose from district judge to Confederate congressman before raising the 7th Texas Infantry in 1861. Captured at Fort Donelson and later exchanged, he was promoted to brigadier general, fought through the Vicksburg Campaign, and was badly wounded at Chickamauga. Returning to duty in 1864, he led the famed Hood's Texas Brigade in Virginia until he was killed in action near Richmond that October. The marker also recalls his role in the 1861 Secession Convention that carried Texas out of the Union.

Montell, TX

John R. Baylor arrived in the young Republic of Texas in 1839 and quickly became one of its most restless and controversial frontier figures, serving in the legislature and as a Comanche agent before the Civil War. In 1861 he led Confederate cavalry into the far Southwest, seizing federal posts and proclaiming a Confederate Territory of Arizona with himself as governor—part of a bold, ultimately failed bid to extend the Confederacy to the Pacific. His brutal order regarding the Apaches led to his recall, yet he fought on as a private at Galveston and rose again to brigadier general by war's end.

Hallettsville, TX

John W. Whitfield came to Texas after a career as a Tennessee legislator, Kansas Indian agent, and territorial delegate to Congress, then organized a Lavaca County cavalry company for the Confederacy in 1861. The unit grew into the 27th Texas Cavalry — 'Whitfield's Legion' — fighting at Pea Ridge and charging an artillery battery at Iuka at heavy cost. Promoted to brigadier general in 1863, Whitfield left field command from ill health, and his brigade later won lasting fame under 'Sul' Ross.

Austin, TX

The General Land Office served the State of Texas from 1856 to 1918, administering the vast public domain from which the state granted land to settlers, veterans, and railroads. Among its clerks was young William Sydney Porter—the future short-story writer O. Henry—who worked here from 1887 to 1891. The state later dedicated the building to heritage organizations honoring the Republic and the Confederacy.

Chatfield, TX

Born in the tiny community of Chatfield in 1895, Lucian K. Truscott, Jr. rose to become one of America's most versatile combat commanders of World War II — the only U.S. officer to lead a regiment, division, corps, and field army in battle. He created the first Army Ranger units, fought from the Dieppe raid and North Africa through Sicily, Italy, and the invasion of southern France, and helped force the German surrender in 1945. After the war he oversaw the Nuremberg trials district and later gathered Cold War intelligence for the CIA in West Germany.

Odessa, TX

Matthew D. Ector enlisted in 1861 and rose from lieutenant to brigadier general, commanding the celebrated Ector's Brigade through hard fighting in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Georgia. Wounded four times without leaving the field at Chickamauga and losing a leg at Atlanta in 1864, he later helped defend Mobile. Texas erected this memorial to its Confederate soldiers in 1963.

Austin, TX

Moseley Baker came from Virginia and commanded Company D of the First Regiment of Texas Volunteers at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836, the brief clash that won Texas its independence. He went on to serve in the congresses of the young Republic and rose to brigadier general of its militia. The State of Texas erected this marker in 1936 for the revolution's centennial.

Lubbock, TX

A New York-born officer who rose to major general in the Civil War, Ranald Slidell Mackenzie took command of the 4th Cavalry in 1871 and led it in a series of campaigns across the Llano Estacado against the Comanches, Kiowas, and Southern Cheyennes. His surprise attack on villages in Palo Duro Canyon on September 28, 1874—where his troops captured and destroyed some 1,424 horses—left the Southern Plains tribes without the means to resist. Their forced move onto reservations opened West Texas to white settlement.

Waco, TX

Richard Harrison was one of three brothers — great-grand-nephews of President William Henry Harrison — who each rose to the rank of general in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. A physician and statesman before his service, he won his commission in Mississippi in 1865, then moved to Texas in 1866 to join his brothers near Waco. There he practiced medicine, farmed, helped rebuild the shattered postwar economy, and served as a trustee of Waco University, a forebear of Baylor.

Dallas, TX

Richard Montgomery Gano came to Texas as a boy in 1839 and made his name first as a frontier Indian fighter and state legislator before the Civil War. When war came he raised the Grapevine Volunteers, rode with John Hunt Morgan on his celebrated Kentucky raids, and rose to brigadier general commanding a brigade of Texas cavalry in Arkansas and Indian Territory, where his men seized a Union supply train worth $1,500,000 at Cabin Creek. Afterward he turned to the ministry and remained active among Confederate veterans until his death in 1913.

Dallas, TX

J. T. Morehead built this dogtrot cabin near Grapevine in 1854, and in 1857 it passed to R. M. Gano — a doctor, minister, and future Confederate general — whose family lived here through the Civil War before moving on to Dallas. Rooms, a loft, and siding were added over the years, and later owners remodeled it further. In 1974 it was restored and moved to this site to preserve its story.

Independence, TX

On November 19, 1854, the hero of San Jacinto and first president of the Republic of Texas was baptized in the waters of Rocky Creek near Independence. The rite was performed by Rufus C. Burleson, a Baptist minister and president of Baylor University, then located in this Washington County town. The State of Texas marked the spot in 1936 during the state's Centennial celebrations.

Galveston, TX

A Massachusetts-born officer who raised volunteers in Kentucky and Ohio, Sidney Sherman commanded a Texas regiment at San Jacinto in 1836 and is credited with first raising the battle cry "Remember the Alamo." He went on to serve the Republic of Texas, command Galveston's port for the Confederacy, and build the first railroad west of the Sabine River. This monument was erected by the state in 1936 for the Texas Centennial.

Reagan, TX

Thomas Harrison was one of three Texas brothers who all rose to the rank of general in the Confederate Army. A veteran of the Mexican War and frontier defense, he took command of Terry's Texas Rangers and rode with the cavalry of Nathan Bedford Forrest, fighting at Shiloh, Murfreesboro, Fort Donelson, Knoxville, and Atlanta while being wounded three times. Elected a district judge after the war, he was removed by Reconstruction authorities and later served as a trustee of Waco University.

Nacogdoches, TX

Remembered as a patriot, soldier, statesman, and jurist, Thomas J. Rusk fought for Texas independence at the Battle of San Jacinto in 1836. The South Carolina native made Nacogdoches his home and gave much of his life to the young Republic and, later, the state. This monument, raised by the State of Texas, bears the simple tribute that "He lived for Texas."