Company I, 7th Texas Infantry

The Abilene company went to war inside the 36th Division, the Texas Division, whose T-Patch mixed Texas and Oklahoma National Guard men. The division reached France in stages between May 31 and August 12, 1918, trained again in September, and fought in the Meuse-Argonne offensive through most of October. The Handbook of Texas notes that Choctaw code talkers in the division played a major role in that campaign. The 36th advanced thirteen miles against German resistance and took 2,601 casualties before it was relieved on October 28 and 29, 1918. It came home between April and June 1919.

What the plaque says

Mustered into service during World War I, July 16, 1917, at Abilene with officers, Captain R. M. Wagstaff; 1st Lt. A. J. McDavid; 2nd Lt. E. B. Sayles; and 1st Sgt. Elmer C. Stearns. Company had 139 enlisted men from the area who trained here at the West Texas Fair Grounds (now Rose Park) until September 1, then transferred to Camp Bowie at Fort Worth. It became part of HQ. CO., 142nd Infantry, 36th Division. The unit saw action in France October 8-28, 1918, with the 4th French army, and was mustered out of service in June, 1919. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Frontier Texas! — 1.7 mi
  Abilene's multimedia museum of the frontier as the settlers told it, beside the Texas and Pacific tracks the town was built on, and the official visitor center for the Texas Forts Trail.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 12 mi
  The 1880 stone courthouse and jail of the county seat Abilene took away, with about twenty old buildings from around West Texas gathered around it since 1956.
• Fort Phantom Hill — 15 mi
  A field of lone stone chimneys north of Abilene, left by the fire after the Army left in 1854, later a stage stop and a buffalo-hide town of more than 500 people.
• Abilene State Park — 16 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.

More markers nearby

• Childers Classical Institute — 0.8 mi
• McMurry College — 0.9 mi
• Site of Western Cattle Trail — 1.1 mi
• The Texas & Pacific Railway: First Railroad Across West Texas — 1.4 mi