Site of Sonora Town Well

By 1892, the Handbook of Texas says, Sonora had 700 people, two saloons, a grain and flour mill, three physicians and a mail stage to San Antonio, and R. W. Callahan gave the land for the courthouse finished in 1893. Supplies came by wagon from San Angelo and Fort McKavett, a round trip of six to fifteen days. A fire on September 12, 1902, wiped out nearly half the town's businesses, and those who could rebuilt in native stone. After a wait of some twenty-three years for a railroad, the first train reached Sonora on May 13, 1930.

What the plaque says

Pioneers seeking grazing land in arid Sutton County needed a reliable source of water. In 1887 Sonora's closest well, one of five in the county, was three miles away. Using a horse-driven drill, Charlie Adams sank the town's first well in 1889 at this site, which became the courthouse square. A windmill pumped the water to a storage tank on the surface. In 1893 another well was drilled nearby, and in 1895 T.D. Newell bought and removed the original waterworks. This large live oak tree stood at the southwest corner of the waterworks lot. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Caverns of Sonora — 10 mi
  A show cave on a Sutton County ranch, opened in 1960 by cavers who wanted to stop the damage, and dense with helictites that grow sideways in every direction.

More markers nearby

• Colonel John S. Sutton — steps away
• Sutton County — 3.4 mi
• Wentworth — 3.6 mi
• First Baptist Church of Eldorado — 20 mi