Altus-Jackson County Well

Altus began somewhere else. The first settlement was Frazer, about fifty people on Bitter Creek, where cowboys off the Great Western Trail stopped at John McClearan's dugout for cold buttermilk, so locals called it Buttermilk Station. A post office opened there in 1886. On June 4, 1891, a flash flood nearly destroyed Frazer, and residents moved two and a half miles east to higher ground. W. R. Baucum suggested the new name Altus, Latin for high. From 1901 to 1904 the town was officially Leger, named for a railroad official's father-in-law.

What the plaque says

The Altus-Jackson County Well Hand dug in 1889-90 by Mr. Sam Neal who homesteaded on the lands that comprise downtown Altus. This well provided the lone, soft water supply to the town for several years. It was 35 feet deep and was walled with brick. Rediscovered in 1989, this restoration project has been a part of the "89" centennial celebration for the State of Oklahoma.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Museum of the Western Prairie — 0.8 mi
  The Oklahoma Historical Society's museum in Altus, telling southwest Oklahoma from the granite uplift through the Western Trail, Texas's Greer County, dugouts, irrigation and the air base.
• Quartz Mountain State Park — 17 mi
  The granite Quartz Mountains, the low western range of the Wichitas, rising from Lake Altus-Lugert, with a CCC-built park of 1937, a rebuilt lodge and the climbing rock of Baldy Point.

More markers nearby

• Peace on the Plains — 15 mi
• Camp Radziminski — 23 mi