Sidney Roper Weisiger

Weisiger was a plumber who taught himself local history. Born in 1906, he took classes at Victoria Junior College and St. Mary's University and read history on his own. Genealogy caught him in 1965, and he ended up cataloguing every cemetery in Victoria County. In 1970 he began a weekly Advocate column, 'Vignettes of Old Victoria,' carefully researched and documented, and in 1971 a daily one, 'Sidney's Journal.' After his death the daily pieces were collected into a 1976 book edited by Robert Shook and Hilda Weisiger. His manuscripts are at Victoria College.

What the plaque says

Sidney Roper Weisiger (November 29, 1906-May 23, 1975) Born to a pioneer Victoria County family, Sidney R. Weisiger grew up with stories of the area's early history. After a term as county sheriff and naval service during World War II, he devoted the last years of his life to preserving Victoria's heritage. His "Vignettes of Old Victoria" and "Sidney's Journal" appeared in "The Victoria Advocate", 1971-1975. After his death, his widow Hilda donated his entire collection of historical research to Victoria College. (1981)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• De León Plaza — 0.8 mi
  The central plaza of Guadalupe Victoria, the only predominantly Mexican colony in Texas, founded by Martín De León in 1824 and taken from his family after 1836.
• Museum of the Coastal Bend — 1.7 mi
  Victoria College's museum of thirteen thousand years on the middle Texas coast, from Clovis hunters and Karankawa potters to La Salle's lost Fort St. Louis and the first ranches.
• Fannin Battleground State Historic Site — 16 mi
  The open prairie east of Goliad where Fannin's retreating column formed a square short of the Coleto Creek timber on March 19, 1836, and surrendered the next day.
• Fannin Memorial Monument — 25 mi
  The 1938 pink granite memorial over the common grave of Fannin's men, shot on the roads out of Goliad on Palm Sunday 1836, the grave itself found again only in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• John J. Linn — steps away
• Abel Seymour Cunningham — steps away
• Dona Patricia De La Garza De Leon — steps away
• Don Martin De Leon — steps away