Runnels County

Hiram George Runnels was born in Hancock County, Georgia, on December 17, 1796, and grew up in Mississippi, the Handbook of Texas says. He was Mississippi's state auditor from 1822 to 1830 and was elected governor in 1833. A dispute arising from his presidency of the Union Bank led him to cane Governor McNutt in the streets of Jackson, and in 1840 he fought a duel with editor Volney E. Howard. He moved to Texas in 1842 to plant on the Brazos, represented Brazoria County at the Convention of 1845 and died in Houston on December 17, 1857.

What the plaque says

Formed from Bexar and Travis counties. Created February 1, 1858. Organized February 16, 1880. Named in honor of Hiram G. Runnels 1796-1857 lawyer and governor of Mississippi. Member of the Texas Legislature. County seat, Runnels City, 1880. Ballinger, since 1888.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carnegie Library of Ballinger — 0.2 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.
• Z. I. Hale Museum and Rock Hotel — 15 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.
• Fort Chadbourne — 27 mi
  An 1852 infantry post and Butterfield stage station on a Coke County ranch, its fallen stone buildings rebuilt since 1999 by the descendant of the family that has ranched the land since 1877.

More markers nearby

• Ballinger — steps away
• Charles H. Noyes — steps away
• Site of the Town of Runnels — 4.7 mi
• San Clemente Mission — 6.7 mi