John M. Ramsey

Artesia Wells, where Ramsey became a community leader, began as a railroad water stop called Bart on the International-Great Northern. It was one of the new towns of the Winter Garden, platted in 1907 as irrigation opened land to farming, and it took its name from the artesian wells that once supplied residents. A post office opened in 1909, and by 1915 the town had a general store and a restaurant. A school followed by 1925 and was gone by the early 1970s, when about thirty people lived here. Interstate 35 later cut through the townsite.

What the plaque says

John M. Ramsey (1845-1925) A native of Alabama, John M. Ramsey served in the Confederate army during the Civil War (1862-1865). In 1867 he married Rebecca Alexander (d. 1885), and in 1870 they settled in Lee County, Texas. In 1889, after his wife died, Ramsey moved with his eight children to La Salle County, where he acquired extensive farm and ranch land. A pioneer leader in the community of Artesia Wells, he participated in political affairs and served as a school trustee. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Chaparral Wildlife Management Area — 8.4 mi
  A 15,200-acre South Texas brush country research tract in La Salle and Dimmit counties, open to the public in spring and summer, with a short accessible trail and a long ranching past.
• Brush Country Museum — 11 mi
  La Salle County's local museum, with a segregated-schools display that sets the scene for the Welhausen School, where Lyndon Johnson taught Mexican American children in 1928-29.

More markers nearby

• The Nueces River — 10 mi
• Cotulla's First School — 11 mi
• First Presbyterian Church of Cotulla — 11 mi
• The Amanda Burks School — 11 mi