Original Tom Green County

The Handbook of Texas says the 1874 act left out a northern boundary, so the county spread over more than 60,000 square miles, the land of sixty-six modern counties. On August 21, 1876, a line from Runnels County's northwest corner west to New Mexico cut away fifty-four of them, and what remained was still larger than Massachusetts and Connecticut combined. Early settlers included G. W. DeLong near Lipan Springs in 1865 and Eugene McCrohan in 1867, but most people were migratory buffalo hunters. In 1870 about 1,000 people lived in the county, nearly all near Fort Concho.

What the plaque says

On transcontinental trail of California gold rush. Until 1846 a part of Bexar Land District, Republic of Texas. Private tracts were surveyed as early as 1847. German Emigration Company colony (90 mi. SE) had grants here, but in 1840s found Indians blocking settlement. Butterfield Overland Mail managers lived at stands in area, 1858-61. R. F. Tankersley family established a permanent home in 1864 in future Tom Green County. By 1874 there were five settlements here, including Bismarck Farm, a colony of 15 German immigrants. The county (12,756 sq. mi., 10 1/2 times as large as state of Rhode Island) was created in 1874 and named for heroic Gen. Green (1814-64), a state official and gallant Texas soldier. After a decade of progress, the original Tom Green County began losing outlying areas. Midland County -- halfway between Fort Worth and El Paso on newly opened Texas & Pacific Railway -- was created in 1885. Settlers remote from San Angelo petitioned for new counties in 1887, and the Texas Legislature created Crane, Loving, Upton, Ward and Winkler. Coke and Irion counties were cut out of Tom Green in 1889. Ector and Sterling were created in 1891. Last diversions -- Glasscock (1893) and Reagan (1903) -- gave Tom Green its present size. It remains influential in the region. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Miss Hattie's Bordello Museum — 0.3 mi
  The upstairs rooms on Concho Avenue where a brothel ran from 1902 until the Texas Rangers closed it in 1952, shown on short guided tours with most of the furnishings original.
• San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts — 0.5 mi
  A free art museum on the Concho beside Fort Concho, founded in the fort's 1868 quartermaster building and known nationally for its biennial ceramics competition.
• Concho River Walk — 0.5 mi
  Four miles of lit trails along the North Concho through downtown San Angelo, rebuilt after voters taxed themselves in 2004, with gardens, sculpture, a river stage and stocked trout.
• Fort Concho National Historic Landmark — 0.7 mi
  The stone post at the forks of the Concho, headquarters of the Tenth Cavalry from 1875 to 1882, saved by a woman with a museum and now a city-run landmark of 23 original buildings.

More markers nearby

• Tom Green, Confederate General — steps away
• Charles B. Metcalfe — steps away
• The San Angelo Standard — steps away
• John Yellott Rust — steps away