Miner Crawford

Crawford was elected sheriff in the same March 15, 1892 vote that organized Briscoe County, alongside J. N. Stalbird as county judge, F. D. Fisher as county attorney, R. I. Hanna as treasurer and T. L. Anderson as clerk. Two years later Silverton finished a jail built of stone from Tule Canyon, and the Handbook of Texas records that its first occupant was the sheriff himself, locked up as a joke during the opening ceremony. The stone jail joined a two-story frame courthouse of 1893; the present courthouse dates from 1922.

What the plaque says

Miner Crawford (June 21, 1867 - Nov. 17, 1928) Born in Benton County, Ark. In 1892, when Briscoe County was organized, won election as first sheriff; also later served single terms, 1913-1914 and 1921-1922. First official act was arrest of two horse thieves from New Mexico; in last term he and two deputies waged a gun battle and captured a moonshine still. He bought law and order to area. Was recognized as "bearing the stamp of a gentleman." Recorded - 1967

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caprock Canyons State Park & Trailway — 15 mi
  Red canyons below the Caprock escarpment where the Texas State Bison Herd, descended from calves Mary Ann Goodnight saved in 1878, has right of way on the park roads.
• Bob Wills Museum — 24 mi
  The old Turkey school, now holding Bob Wills's boots, hats, his father's fiddle and his barbershop tools, in the cotton town that fills each April for Bob Wills Day.

More markers nearby

• Briscoe County — steps away
• First Methodist Church of Silverton — steps away
• First Baptist Church of Silverton — 0.3 mi
• Site of Celtic Post Office — 8.2 mi