First Officials of Foard County

The officials took charge of a county in transition. The Handbook of Texas says barbed wire had already closed the cattle ranges and farmers were moving in. In 1900 the census counted 1,568 people on 210 farms and ranches, with nearly 38,000 cattle and modest acreages of cotton, corn and wheat. Within ten years the county had 718 farms and ranches and 5,726 people, more than 21,300 acres in cotton and over 10,000 fruit trees, mostly peach, while the cattle count fell to about 16,000. Drought and hard years cut the population to 4,724 by 1920.

What the plaque says

Committee appointed by the Legislature to organize county met in (Old) Margaret April 4, 1891. County divided into four precincts. Election held April 27. Following officials elected: judge, J. C. Roberts attorney, G. T. Brown clerk, G. W. Thompson sheriff, S. J. Moore tax assessor, J. A. Wright treasurer, J. W. Magee surveyor, Harry Sappington animal & hide inspector, T. H. Benson commissioners: John Wesley John B. Stegar J. W. Moore W. T. McDaniel (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fire Hall Museum — steps away
  Crowell's local museum in the 1922 firehouse on Main Street, in a county-seat town that was almost wiped away by the tornado of April 1942 and rebuilt.
• Copper Breaks State Park — 9.7 mi
  Red badlands on the Pease River between Quanah and Crowell, streaked with the green copper that lured a Civil War general here to mine, with longhorns and a dark-sky designation.
• Quanah, Acme and Pacific Depot Museum — 22 mi
  The Spanish Colonial Revival depot of a little railroad that set out for El Paso and never got past Floydada, now Hardeman County's museum alongside the county's 1890 jail.
• Red River Valley Museum — 26 mi
  Vernon's museum on College Drive, with rooms on the Waggoner ranch empire, Doan's Crossing and early Vernon, and the largest known collection of Electra Waggoner Biggs's art.

More markers nearby

• Robert L. Foard — steps away
• First Christian Church — steps away
• Foard County — 3.0 mi
• Site of the Town of Margaret — 8.4 mi