Home County of Famous Frontiersman J. Wright Mooar

J. Wright Mooar claimed to have given the Sharps Rifle Company the idea for the 'Big 50,' a gun made for buffalo hunters, but the Handbook of Texas finds no evidence that either Mooar brother did. It calls the Sharps sporting rifle perhaps the principal firearm in the destruction of the herds. Its breech could take the large cartridges needed at long range, its heavy octagonal barrel absorbed recoil, and its smooth bullets were wrapped in banknote paper that fell away at the muzzle. Many Texas buffalo outfitters, among them Conrad and Jackson of Fort Griffin, sold Sharps rifles.

What the plaque says

(Aug. 10, 1851-May 1, 1940) Champion hunter of buffalo--largest game animal in North America. Born in Vermont; came west at 19. Began hunting in 1870 to supply hides for market. In partnership with his brother, John W. Mooar, in 1873 established first buffalo hunting camp in the Texas Panhandle. On Oct. 7, 1876, at his first hunting camp in Scurry County, killed a rare albino buffalo--one of two known to have been killed in Texas. The hide of that albino, afterward shown in 1904 St. Louis Fair and many other occasions, is now preserved here in Scurry County by Mooar's descendants. Hunted regularly until 1879; in 1881 helped furnish game and hay to feed construction men and animals building Texas & Pacific Railroad in West Texas. During his career, he shot about 22,000 buffalo--a record probably unsurpassed. His ability to hit a vital spot at a distance of 1,000 feet or farther won the respect of such Indians as Comanche Chief Quanah Parker, who became his friend in later life. Began ranching with his brother in 1877. Also had a business in Colorado City, 1881-1905. Highly esteemed. Site of killing of white buffalo (10 mi. NW of here) is near the Old Mooar Ranch headquarters, where his hand-hug water well is now surrounded by oil wells. (1967)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Scurry County Museum — 2.6 mi
  Snyder's county museum on the Western Texas College campus, with the rifle used to shoot the white buffalo, an 1878 chuckwagon and the millionth barrel of the Canyon Reef oil boom.
• Heart of West Texas Museum — 23 mi
  Colorado City's museum in a restored downtown house, from a mammoth dug up at Lake Champion in 2001 to an Ice Age bison and the wartime telegrams sent to a local family.
• National WASP WWII Museum — 32 mi
  Hangar 1 at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, where the women of the WASP trained to fly every aircraft in the Army's arsenal in World War II, then waited thirty-three years to be called veterans.

More markers nearby

• Scurry County's Canyon Reef Oil Field — steps away
• County Named for Texas Confederate William R. Scurry 1821-1864 — steps away
• Scurry County — steps away
• Santa Fe Railway in Scurry County — steps away