City of Ralls

John R. Ralls laid out the townsite in July 1911 with the help of W. E. McLaughlin and, at his own expense, began moving businesses and houses over from Emma. The second school term, in 1913, was held in a new $17,000 building on the land he had given. A chamber of commerce formed in 1917 with Percy Ralls, John's brother, as first president, and by 1922 the town had 950 people. On June 19, 1935, the worst hail and wind storm in county history killed two residents and unroofed the compress.

What the plaque says

City of Ralls Founded by John R. Ralls, who donated land for a townsite. He erected greater part of the business district and gave free sites plus much of the cost of building each church in town. In 1911, he contributed 12 acres for school site. He also offered donation of 2,000 acres for site of Texas Technological College. Ralls, born in Culloden, Georgia, November 13, 1863; moved West in 1880's. After settling litigation with C.B. Livestock Company, sponsors of towns of Crosbyton and Cedric, Ralls secured railroad station, 1916; city was incorporated January 6, 1922, after death of founder. 1967

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Crosby County Pioneer Memorial Museum — 8.5 mi
  Crosbyton's museum of Blanco Canyon, built in 1958 as a copy of Hank Smith's Rock House, and the place to learn the canyon's 1871 fight between Mackenzie's cavalry and Quanah's Quahadi Comanche.
• Slaton Harvey House — 22 mi
  A 1912 Santa Fe Harvey House in the railroad town of Slaton, restored as a museum, event hall and five-room inn overlooking a working BNSF yard.
• Silent Wings Museum — 26 mi
  The museum of the American combat glider pilots of World War II, in Lubbock's old airport terminal on the field where most of them earned their wings.
• American Windmill Museum — 26 mi
  Lubbock's park of restored water-pumping windmills and early wind chargers, more than 70 of them turning outdoors and the rare ones under roof, with a megawatt-era turbine overhead.

More markers nearby

• John Robinson Ralls — 1.1 mi
• Ralls Cemetery — 1.1 mi
• Emma — 4.2 mi
• Emma Cemetery — 4.9 mi