O. W. Williams

Williams kept journals of his early surveying trips and laid out Block O in Lubbock County, the site of Lubbock. In 1880 he prospected for silver at Shakespeare, New Mexico, without success. In Pecos County his prohibitionist views cost him the 1890 election, and a failed Pecos River cotton irrigation project left him deeply in debt. His article "Route of Cabeza de Vaca in Texas" appeared in the Texas State Historical Association's Quarterly in 1899, and on a 1901 field survey of the Big Bend he found two new species of ants, one named for him.

What the plaque says

O. W. Williams Kentucky native Oscar Waldo Williams (1853-1946) graduated from Harvard with a law degree in 1876 and moved to Texas in search of a drier climate. He worked as a land surveyor as the South Plains opened for settlement and in 1884 accepted a job as deputy surveyor for Pecos County. After serving as Pecos County judge (1886-1888, 1892-1900), Williams practiced law in Fort Stockton, building an office on this site about 1915. An expert in land law and water rights, his interests and investments shifted to oil and gas leases in the region. A keen observer of events and nature, Williams also authored numerous articles on the history, folklore and natural history of the Southwest. (2001)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Historic Fort Stockton — steps away
  The Ninth Cavalry's post at Comanche Springs from 1867 to 1886, with its 1868 stone guardhouse, three adobe officers' quarters and barracks rebuilt from the original plans.
• Annie Riggs Memorial Museum — 0.2 mi
  An 1899 adobe hotel on Main Street that a twice-married frontier woman bought with her gunfighter husband's estate and ran as a boarding house until she died in 1931.
• Comanche Springs — 0.3 mi
  Once the sixth largest spring in Texas and a campground on the Comanche Trail to Mexico, pumped dry by 1961 under the rule of capture and now flowing again some winters.

More markers nearby

• Site of Comanche Springs — steps away
• Hovey School — steps away
• Site of Fort Stockton — 0.3 mi
• Fort Stockton, C.S.A. — 0.3 mi