Military & Wartime

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.

Lafayette, LA

Jean-Jacques Alfred Alexander Mouton (1829–1864) was a Lafayette-born Confederate brigadier general who fought through the western campaigns of the Civil War — Shiloh, Lafourche, the Bayou Teche, and the Red River. He was killed in 1864 at the Battle of Mansfield, a Confederate victory that halted the Union's Red River Campaign in Louisiana.

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.

Ridgefield, CT

In the spring of 1777, British troops raided the Continental supply depot at Danbury, and Connecticut's militia rose to meet them. Among those who answered the call was General David Wooster, a veteran Connecticut soldier who had served since the French and Indian War. On April 27, while harrying the retreating British column near Ridgefield, the 66-year-old general was struck by a musket ball and fell here, mortally wounded; he died days later, one of the highest-ranking American officers lost in the war's northern theater.

Milwaukee, WI

Milwaukee dedicated MacArthur Square on September 17, 1945, weeks after Japan's surrender, to honor General of the Army Douglas MacArthur for leading Allied forces to victory in the Pacific. MacArthur, who lived from 1880 to 1964, was among the most famous and controversial commanders of the age, from the defense of the Philippines to the surrender ceremony aboard the USS Missouri. Naming a civic square for him captured the flush of triumph and gratitude in the war's final days.

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.

Hillsborough, NC

Francis Nash of Hillsborough rose to become a patriot general in the American Revolution, leading North Carolina Continentals in the fight for independence. He was mortally wounded at the Battle of Germantown in 1777 and died of his wounds days later. His home stood just west of here, grounding a Revolutionary hero in the streets of this small town.

New York, NY

In the spring of 1790, barely a year into his presidency and with the new federal government still finding its footing in nearby New York City, George Washington set out on a tour of Long Island, riding its country roads to see the land and meet the citizens of the young republic. This tablet marks one stretch of that journey through what is now Queens. It was placed in 1934 by the Matinecock Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution, part of a nationwide effort in that era to fix the memory of the founding generation onto the everyday landscape.

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.

Mercer, PA · est. 1917

Hugh Mercer, a Scottish-born physician turned soldier, first crossed the mountains as an officer in General Forbes's 1758 expedition against Fort Duquesne and later commanded at Fort Pitt. When the Revolution came he took up arms again, rising to brigadier general in the Continental Army. He fell mortally wounded at the Battle of Princeton in 1777, becoming one of the cause's celebrated martyrs.

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.

Village of Geneseo, NY

James S. Wadsworth was a wealthy Genesee Valley landowner who left behind a comfortable life to serve the Union cause during the Civil War. Rising to brevet major general, he commanded troops at major battles including Gettysburg before being mortally wounded leading his men at the Battle of the Wilderness in May 1864. This statue in his home village of Geneseo honors a man who championed the Union, emancipation, and his beloved valley to the very end.

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.

Wilkesville, OH

In July 1863, Confederate cavalry general John Hunt Morgan led roughly 2,000 raiders on a daring, unauthorized dash across the Ohio River and deep into the North, the farthest incursion of regular Confederate troops during the Civil War. His column swept through southern Ohio's hill country — including Vinton County — as alarmed militia and Union cavalry gave chase across the countryside. Markers like this one trace the winding route of "Morgan's Raid," which ended days later with his capture near the Pennsylvania line.

Jennings County, IN

This plaque marks the route of Morgan's Raid, the 1863 sweep by Confederate cavalry commander General John Hunt Morgan and his raiders across southern Indiana and Ohio. In July 1863 Morgan's horsemen crossed the Ohio River and rode through counties like Jennings, spreading alarm through the civilian North far from the main theaters of the Civil War. The raid was one of the deepest Confederate incursions into Union territory before Morgan was finally captured in Ohio.

San Francisco, CA

This monument pays tribute to General John J. Pershing, commander of the American Expeditionary Forces during the World War of 1914–1918. Pershing insisted that American troops fight as a distinct army rather than be parceled out to Allied commands, shaping the United States' decisive late entry into the conflict. The San Francisco setting connects the general to a region that sent many of its sons to the Western Front.

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.

West Chester, PA · est. 1951

In 1825 the aging Marquis de Lafayette, hero of the American Revolution, toured the United States as "the Nation's Guest," greeted everywhere by adoring crowds. On July 26 he stopped at the Brandywine battlefield, where he had been wounded fighting for American independence in 1777, before coming on to West Chester. There, near this spot, he reviewed troops parading in his honor amid the outpouring of gratitude that marked his farewell tour.

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.

Honesdale, PA · est. 2022

Born near Honesdale, Lyman Louis Lemnitzer rose through the ranks to become one of the most consequential American military figures of the mid-twentieth century. He served as a general in World War II, earned distinction as a commander in Korea, helped shape the young NATO alliance, and went on to chair the Joint Chiefs of Staff and command NATO forces in Europe before retiring as a four-star general in 1969. His career traced the arc of America's rise as a global military power.

Sonoma, CA

Mariano Guadalupe Vallejo (1807-1890) was born in Monterey and rose to become the most powerful figure in Mexican northern California, founding the Pueblo of Sonoma in 1835 and commanding its frontier defenses. He lived through California's passage from Mexican rule to American statehood, later serving as a state senator and Sonoma's mayor while pursuing ranching and winemaking. This bilingual marker honors the breadth of his roles as soldier, statesman, and pioneer.

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.

Detroit, MI

The Grand Army of the Republic was the great fraternal order of Union veterans who had fought to preserve the nation and end slavery, and by the late nineteenth century its local Posts anchored civic life in cities across the North. This Detroit Post carried the name of General Orlando M. Poe, a Michigan-born engineer who served with distinction in the Union Army. The lofty inscription — honoring men who acted 'not for selfish gain or applause, but for honor and the glory of the cause' — captures the reverent, memorializing spirit the GAR brought to the decades after Appomattox.

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.

Butler, PA · est. 1917

Born in Ireland, Richard Butler was one of five soldier brothers renowned for their service in the Revolutionary cause. He rose from captain of a Pennsylvania battalion in 1776 to colonel of the 9th Pennsylvania, then to major general of United States Levies by 1791. His military life spanned the war for independence and the young nation's early campaigns on the western frontier.

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.

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.

Lewisburg, PA · est. 1954

Tasker Howard Bliss, born in this Lewisburg house in 1853, rose to become Chief of Staff of the U.S. Army during the First World War, helping steer the enormous task of raising and shipping an American army to Europe. When the guns fell silent, he served as a military counselor to President Woodrow Wilson at the Paris Peace Conference that produced the Treaty of Versailles. A scholar-soldier, he moved from the classroom to the highest councils of a nation at war and then at the peace table.

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."

Fort Worth, TX

South Carolina-born Thomas Neville Waul practiced law in Mississippi before settling in Texas in 1850. He served in the Provisional Confederate Congress and signed the 1861 Confederate constitution, then raised Waul's Texas Legion and led it in the defense of Vicksburg in 1862–63. In 1864 he commanded a brigade in the Red River Campaign at Mansfield and Jenkins' Ferry before returning to his Texas law practice after the war.

Sulphur Springs, TX

This memorial honors General William H. King, a Georgian who moved to Texas in 1861 and rose to command the 18th Texas Infantry. He led his regiment through the Red River campaigns of 1863 and 1864 that helped keep Union forces from splitting the Confederacy or invading Texas, was wounded at Mansfield and promoted to brigadier general, and later served as the state's adjutant general. The marker doubles as a broader tribute to the roughly 90,000 Texans who fought for the Confederacy.

Corpus Christi, TX

William Warren Sterling embodied the arc of the twentieth-century Texas lawman, rising from the ranks of the Rangers to serve as the state's Adjutant General from 1931 to 1933. A towering figure remembered for his marksmanship and horsemanship, he scouted for the U.S. Army during the tense border troubles of 1914–1917 and later wore a colonel's insignia in World War II. His career braided together the frontier traditions of ranching and law enforcement with the modern demands of a state on the move.

Franklin, TX

Walter Washington Williams was reputed to be the last surviving soldier of the Civil War, said to have served as a forage master for the celebrated Hood's Texas Brigade. Born in Mississippi in 1842, he moved to Texas soon after the war and farmed near here, living quietly until extreme old age brought him fame as one of the last living veterans. President Dwight D. Eisenhower gave him the honorary rank of general and proclaimed national mourning at his death in 1959. He rests in Mount Pleasant Cemetery, one of the oldest burial grounds in Robertson County, within the colony planted in the 1820s by pioneer Sterling C. Robertson.

Fort Worth, TX

William Jenkins Worth of Hudson, New York, made a soldier's career that spanned the early republic's wars: badly wounded at Lundy's Lane in the War of 1812, he later commanded cadets at West Point, campaigned against the Sac and Fox and the Florida Seminoles, took part in Cherokee removal, and won a Sword of Honor from Congress for his conduct in the Mexican War. He died of cholera at San Antonio in 1849 while commanding the Texas and New Mexico military districts. Though he never saw this ground, the frontier post of Fort Worth was named in his memory.

Dunlay, TX

During the Mexican counter-invasions of 1842, General Adrián Woll marched an army north to seize San Antonio from the young Republic of Texas—and had a fresh road cut through the brush country so his column could approach undetected. Woll took the city by surprise that September, held it a week, and clashed with Texian volunteers at Salado Creek before retreating along the same secret road. The route long outlived the campaign, serving settlers and freight haulers for decades.

Castroville, TX

In 1846, as the United States went to war with Mexico, General John Ellis Wool gathered 3,400 troops in San Antonio for an intended march on Chihuahua, crossing the Medina River and passing through Castroville before orders redirected him to reinforce General Zachary Taylor. The path his army traced—echoing an earlier Mexican retreat—hardened into the Chihuahua Road, a vital artery of westward trade. Castroville's central position and reliable water made it a thriving stop for travelers and freighters.

New York, NY

This granite obelisk at the crossing of Fifth Avenue and Broadway honors William Jenkins Worth, a soldier from Hudson, New York, whose career traced the young republic's expanding military ambitions. He earned his commission in the War of 1812, spent the 1820s shaping the officer corps as Commandant of Cadets at West Point, and won his greatest fame in the hard-fought campaigns of the Mexican-American War of the 1840s. When he died in 1849, the city he served brought him home, and the monument that rose over his grave became one of the very few burial sites in Manhattan marked by a public memorial.

Sarita, TX

On March 15, 1846, General Zachary Taylor camped beneath a tree at this spot as he marched his "Army of Occupation" south from Corpus Christi toward the Rio Grande. Within weeks the clash of his troops with Mexican forces along that river would ignite the Mexican-American War. Taylor's popularity as a wartime commander soon carried him to the White House.

Geneva, TX

On land first granted in 1794, the community that became Geneva took shape in the 1820s as settlers pushed in from the east, passing through names like Shawnee Village and Jimtown before settling on Geneva. Levi T. Allen deeded ground for a church and cemetery in 1879, and the Geneva Myrtle Springs Cemetery became the resting place of the area's pioneer families. Its stones honor veterans stretching from the Civil War through both World Wars, Korea, and Iraq.

San Antonio, TX

Georg Heinrich Buchsenschutz, a veteran of the Mexican War, came to Texas in 1850 and by 1860 had bought more than 200 acres of farmland here, marrying Friederike Schulmeier the same year and raising ten children. When their eldest daughter died at fifteen in 1881, she was buried on the homestead, and her father joined her in 1895; a dozen more family members followed over the next half-century. The small family cemetery, recognized as a Historic Texas Cemetery in 2001, remains open to descendants.

Flat Rock, NC

George A. Trenholm was a Charleston cotton broker and financier who served as the Confederate Secretary of the Treasury in the war's final year, 1864–65, struggling to sustain a collapsing wartime economy. A South Carolina legislator and one of the South's wealthiest men, he summered at "Solitude," an estate that once stood near this marker in the cool mountain air of Flat Rock. He is often cited as a possible model for the character Rhett Butler.

Orange, TX

A War of 1812 veteran born in Georgia in 1796, George Alexander Pattillo migrated to southeast Texas in the early 1830s and threw himself into the region's revolutionary politics, serving on a Committee of Correspondence and the provisional government's General Council. He aided the Texas Army during the 1836 revolution, arriving at San Jacinto the day after the battle, and was tasked by President David G. Burnet with organizing Jefferson County. He later served in the Republic of Texas Congress, championed annexation, and became Orange County's first judge in 1852.

Houston, TX

Born in New York in 1812, George Allen came to Texas in the 1830s and fought in the war for independence, later joining the Somervell Expedition. In 1838 he settled in Houston to help his brothers Augustus and John Kirby Allen establish the new city, and in 1839 became the first committeeman charged with improving Buffalo Bayou, its vital shipping artery. His work helped set Houston on its course as a commercial port.

Pampa, TX

Long before he became a household name, young West Point engineer George B. McClellan crossed this country in 1852 as part of Randolph Marcy's expedition exploring the Texas Panhandle, leaving his name on a nearby creek and, later, a lake. He went on to design the army saddle still bearing his name, lead the Union Army as a general, and run against Abraham Lincoln for the presidency in 1864 before serving as governor of New Jersey. This marker ties a familiar Civil War figure to his little-known early days surveying the West.