R.C. (Dick) Ware

Richard Clayton Ware was born near Rome, Georgia, on November 11, 1851, and joined the Frontier Battalion on April 1, 1876, the Handbook of Texas says. At Round Rock in July 1878 he was being shaved when the Bass gang rode in; he ran out half-lathered and shot Seaborn Barnes dead. Lieutenant Nevill's report credited George Herold with the shot that killed Bass, but witnesses named Ware, and the dying Bass said the man who felled him had lather on his face. Ware won the sheriff's race by a single vote. He died on July 2, 1902.

What the plaque says

1851-1902 Born in Georgia, migrated to Texas in the 1870's and joined the Texas Rangers in 1878. Was noted for his part in gun battle with outlaw Sam Bass at Round Rock, where Bass had planned to rob the bank. It was Ware's bullet that gave Bass the wound from which he died. Was elected first sheriff of Mitchell County in 1881; retired 1892, was appointed U.S. Marshal for Western District of Texas, 1893. Served four years. Recorded - 1967

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Heart of West Texas Museum — 1.4 mi
  Colorado City's museum in a restored downtown house, from a mammoth dug up at Lake Champion in 2001 to an Ice Age bison and the wartime telegrams sent to a local family.
• Lake Colorado City State Park — 7.1 mi
  A mesquite-plains park on a lake built in 1949 to cool a power plant, southwest of Colorado City, where controlled burns are bringing back the grassland and 300 bird species pass through.
• Scurry County Museum — 20 mi
  Snyder's county museum on the Western Texas College campus, with the rifle used to shoot the white buffalo, an 1878 chuckwagon and the millionth barrel of the Canyon Reef oil boom.
• National WASP WWII Museum — 22 mi
  Hangar 1 at Avenger Field in Sweetwater, where the women of the WASP trained to fly every aircraft in the Army's arsenal in World War II, then waited thirty-three years to be called veterans.

More markers nearby

• Comanche Village Massacre — 0.6 mi
• Buffalo Trails — 1.4 mi
• Texas & Pacific Railway — 1.5 mi
• Mitchell County — 1.6 mi