Bridwell Park

Beyond oil and Herefords, Bridwell gave his time to a long list of boards. He was president of the American Hereford Association and of the Independent Producers Equity Association, and served with the American Petroleum Institute and the National Petroleum Council. He sat on the boards of the Texas and Southwestern Cattle Raisers Association, the Southwestern Exposition and Livestock Show, the Texas Research Foundation at Renner and the Southwest Foundation for Research and Education in San Antonio, as well as Southern Methodist University. He also built several homes for the Methodist orphanage at Waco.

What the plaque says

Donated to his countrymen by conservationist-philanthropist Joseph Sterling Bridwell (1885-1966), Missourian who moved to Texas in 1909. Drilling his first well in 1921 on W. T. Waggoner estate, in 1927 he formed Bridwell Oil Co., which ultimately produced 50 million barrels of petroleum. In 1932 he bought local ranch (with headquarters 5 mi. to NW), where he bred famous herd sire Larry Domino and other fine Herefords. A founder and president (1940), West Texas Chamber of Commerce, Bridwell gave nation the site for Sheppard Air Force Base. He and wife had 2 daughters. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Royal Theater — 13 mi
  Archer City's movie house, burned in 1965, given a false front for The Last Picture Show and brought back by the town in the 1990s as a working stage on Main Street.
• Lake Arrowhead State Park — 20 mi
  A prairie park on the north shore of the Wichita Falls water-supply lake, which drowned the town of Halsell in 1965-66, with mesquite campsites, a lighted pier and more than 200 bird species.
• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 25 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.
• Clay County 1890 Jail Museum — 27 mi
  Henrietta's 1890 stone jail a block from the domed courthouse, now the county museum, with its original cells, a gallows that was never used and the sheriff's family quarters.

More markers nearby

• St. Mary's Catholic Church Windthorst — 6.6 mi
• Townsite of Old Farmer — 11 mi
• Shannon Cemetery — 11 mi
• J. H. Meurer Home — 12 mi