S.D. Myres

The Handbook of Texas says Samuel Dale Myres was born in Johnson County on November 22, 1871, and that a knee injury from a fall off a horse kept him from going west as a cowboy. Besides forty-dollar saddles for working cowmen, he made saddles for movie stars, western show performers and the Texas Rangers, and in 1914 he produced the 'Miller $10,000 Saddle,' with fifteen pounds of silver and gold and more than 300 precious stones. As mayor he helped bring the Santa Fe through Sweetwater. In El Paso his firm became famous for holsters and gunbelts.

What the plaque says

Samuel Dale Myres began his career as an apprentice saddle-maker in Cleburne. He moved to Sweetwater in 1898. A highly skilled craftsman, Myres was soon know for his superior workmanship. He served as mayor of Sweetwater from 1908 to 1911, and was instrumental in many city improvements. His saddlery business was relocated to this building in 1919 after a fire destroyed his first shop. Myres closed his Sweetwater business in 1937 and moved to El Paso, where he died in 1953. (1989)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Pioneer Museum — 0.4 mi
  Nolan County's settlement story in a dozen rooms of Judge R. A. Ragland's 1906 house in Sweetwater, a town that started as a dugout store for buffalo hunters and a post office called Blue Goose.
• National WASP WWII Museum — 3.3 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.
• Heart of West Texas Museum — 27 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.

More markers nearby

• Nolan County — steps away
• W.A.S.P. (Women's Airforce Service Pilots) Training Base: Avenger Field — steps away
• Texas & Pacific Railway — steps away
• Herefords in Sweetwater — 0.9 mi