Elbert Gray

The Carnegie Hero Fund Commission's file (No. 8205-778) records how the rescue unfolded. The well was 13 inches across and 60 feet deep, with 18 inches of water at the bottom. Efforts to hook two-year-old Calvin Stepp out failed. An uncle went to a town three miles away, found Elbert and asked whether he would go down, mentioning no reward. On the first lift Calvin's clothes gave way and he dropped again. Elbert came up crying, his arms skinned and face scratched, then agreed to go in headfirst with a rope to tie around the boy.

What the plaque says

Elbert Gray On Feb. 5, 1912, 16-year-old Elbert Gray committed a most heroic act. Two-year-old Calvin Stepp had fallen into a water well sixty feet deep and barely one foot across. Lowered by rope, Elbert descended feet first to carry Calvin to safety, but near the top Calvin slipped and fell again. On the second try, Elbert went head first and successfully rescued Calvin after four hours trapped below the surface. Both youths had only minor cuts and bruises. Newspaper accounts and letters of support sent to the Carnegie Hero Fund Commission resulted in Elbert being awarded a Carnegie Hero Medal in Oct. 1913. During World War II, Elbert lost all fingers on one hand in a Dallas War Defense plant. Elbert and Calvin kept in touch the rest of their lives. 175 Years of Texas Independence * 1836-2011

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 15 mi
  A free museum at Terrell's airport where about 2,200 RAF cadets learned to fly between 1941 and 1945, with logbooks, uniforms, letters and original training aircraft.
• Purtis Creek State Park — 24 mi
  A 1,582-acre park straddling the Henderson and Van Zandt county line, built around a 355-acre lake with no-wake fishing, borrowed tackle, a 4.1-mile hike-and-bike trail and a nature path.
• Rockwall County Historical Foundation & Museum — 30 mi
  A small museum in Harry Myers Park that keeps the evidence on Rockwall's rock wall, sandstone dikes that geologists call natural and folk tales call built.

More markers nearby

• First Christian Church of Wills Point — 1.2 mi
• County Seat War — 1.3 mi
• Dallas-Shreveport Road — 1.3 mi
• White Rose Cemetery — 1.3 mi