Site of Wardville

Wardville is named for Thomas William Ward, called Peg Leg. The Handbook of Texas says a cannonball shattered his right leg at the attack on Bexar on December 5, 1835, and it was amputated; in 1840 a cannon he was loading fired early at Austin and cost him his right arm. In 1850 he was appointed a special commissioner to review disputed claims in the Peters colony, and grateful colonists in Johnson County named their first county seat for him. He died in Austin in 1872.

What the plaque says

Site of Wardville (1/4 mile south of marker) First county seat of Johnson County, chosen in Aug. 1855, and located on an 80-acre donation from William O'Neal. Named for Thomas William Ward (1807-72), a Republic of Texas soldier and second commissioner of General Land Office of Texas. The first courthouse, 16 feet square, was built by O'Neal of logs overlaid with clapboards, at cost of $49. When Wardville was found to violate Texas constitution's requirement that a county seat by within 5 miles of center of county, it was abandoned (1856). Ironically, later county line changes made it near the center. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Cleburne State Park — 7.7 mi
  A 1930s Civilian Conservation Corps park on the old Chisholm Trail crossing country, with a spring-fed lake, a hand-carved three-tiered spillway and a CCC bridge in Johnson County.
• Acton State Historic Site — 16 mi
  The smallest state historic site in Texas, a grave plot holding Elizabeth Crockett, widow of David Crockett, under a 1913 statue of a pioneer woman shading her eyes toward the west.
• Granbury Courthouse Square — 21 mi
  A National Register square of limestone storefronts around W. C. Dodson's Second Empire courthouse, whose clock tower citizens saved after a 1968 tornado.
• Dinosaur Valley State Park — 22 mi
  Theropod and sauropod trackways of about 113 million years ago in the bed of the Paluxy River, a National Natural Landmark where R. T. Bird found the first distinct sauropod tracks in 1937.

More markers nearby

• The Texas World War II Home Front — 2.5 mi
• Lake Pat Cleburne — 3.2 mi
• Johnson County — 3.7 mi
• Site of the Old City Spring — 3.7 mi