Ranger Peak

Company E's captain, William Jeff Maltby, was born in Sangamon County, Illinois, in 1829, the Handbook of Texas says. After volunteer service in the Mexican War, he worked for the army from 1849 to 1855 as a teamster, wagonmaster, scout and dispatch bearer and helped build Fort Belknap, Fort Clark and Fort Concho. In 1856 he ran a stage stop at Fort Clark on the San Antonio-El Paso road, and in 1857 he married and settled in Burnet County. In 1863 he organized his neighbors into a minute-man company as a Ranger sergeant.

What the plaque says

Named for Company E, Texas Rangers, which was stationed 1/2 mile east of peak in 1874. Atop peak, Rangers (Under Capt. W. J. "Jeff" Maltby) kept a lookout for Indians. Outfit was part of the frontier battalion, organized to protect Texas settlers on frontier stretching from Red River to the Nueces. Camp was abandoned in 1876. (1970)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 14 mi
  A free museum in a Winters optometrist's office, a 1909 railroad hotel and a 1927 implement dealership, with Rogers Hornsby's hometown memorabilia and a 1912 horse-drawn cotton picker.
• Abilene State Park — 16 mi
  A pecan-shaded park on Elm Creek in the Callahan Divide south of Abilene, with red sandstone CCC buildings, a summer pool, a bird blind and yurts under the trees.
• Buffalo Gap Historic Village — 18 mi
  The 1880 stone courthouse and jail of the county seat Abilene took away, with about twenty old buildings from around West Texas gathered around it since 1956.
• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 24 mi
  A 1909 limestone library with an Ionic portico in a railroad town the Santa Fe created in 1886, one of the few Texas Carnegie libraries still working in its original building.

More markers nearby

• Ranger Campsite — steps away
• Cotton Production in Runnels County — steps away
• Old Townsite of Content — 0.9 mi
• Atoka Cemetery — 5.5 mi