Howard County

Howard, born in Norridgewock, Maine, in 1809, made his name in Mississippi before he came to Texas. As a legislator he carried Mississippi's electoral vote for Martin Van Buren to Washington, and as editor of the Mississippian he opposed a state guarantee for the Union Bank of Vicksburg, a stand that led him into duels with Sergeant S. Prentiss, Governor Alexander G. McNutt and former governor Hiram G. Runnels, who wounded him badly. He compiled a digest of Mississippi law. After Texas, he practiced in California and became a Los Angeles judge.

What the plaque says

Howard County Formed from Young and Bexar Territories. Created August 21, 1876. Organized June 15, 1882. Named in honor of Volney Erskine Howard 1809-1889. Came to Texas in 1844. Delegate to the first state constitutional convention. Member of the state legislature. Member of the United States Congress. Big Spring, the county seat

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Hotel Settles — steps away
  Big Spring's fifteen-story hotel of 1930, built on ranch oil money, once the tallest building between Fort Worth and El Paso, empty and roosted in by pigeons for decades and now restored.
• Big Spring State Park — 1.7 mi
  A CCC drive looping up Scenic Mountain, a 200-foot bluff above the town that grew around the only dependable spring within sixty miles of open Llano country.
• Hangar 25 Air Museum — 2.9 mi
  A restored World War II hangar on the old air base above Big Spring, telling the story of the bombardier school of 1942 and of Webb Air Force Base, which trained pilots until 1977.

More markers nearby

• First National Bank in Big Spring — steps away
• The J. & W. Fisher Company — steps away
• First Christian Church of Big Spring — 0.5 mi
• Big Spring School District — 0.8 mi