Captain William Benson

Irrigation changed what Uvalde County could grow. Between 1900 and 1903 its irrigated farmland grew from 365 acres to 2,500, and by 1903 farms were raising peaches, plums, figs, pears, onions, tomatoes, melons, potatoes, cabbage and beans; onion shipments reached 100,000 pounds that year. The Handbook of Texas notes that farming had been thought impractical here without irrigation, so the plantation system never took hold, and only twenty-seven enslaved people lived in the county in 1861. After 1910, Mexican families fleeing the Revolution did much of the clearing and ditch-digging as irrigation spread.

What the plaque says

Captain William Benson Maryland native William Benson (b. 1837) came to Texas after graduating from college as a civil engineer. After settling in Brazoria County he became a teacher. During the Civil War he commanded a cavalry regiment as one of the youngest captains in the Confederacy. Benson later came to Uvalde, where he again taught school. About 1874 he and his wife, Felicia (Yeiser), moved to this site and lived in a log house until this residence was completed about 1881. A leader in early irrigation projects, Benson continued to serve the community until his death in 1922. 1983

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Uvalde Grand Opera House — steps away
  An 1891 Victorian opera house on the Uvalde square with a turret and a dragon weathervane, once owned by John Nance Garner and still staging volunteer theater upstairs.
• Briscoe-Garner Museum — 0.3 mi
  The Uvalde house of John Nance Garner, the vice president who made the office a power in Congress, now a free museum to him and to Governor Dolph Briscoe.
• Fort Inge Historical Site — 2.6 mi
  A county park on the Leona River below a 140-foot volcanic plug, where an army post guarded the new road to El Paso from 1849 to 1869 and Texas Rangers camped after.

More markers nearby

• L. Schwartz Company — steps away
• Original Site of Uvalde High School — steps away
• Kincaid Hotel — steps away
• First Presbyterian Church of Uvalde — steps away