Thomas Ruckman

The partner this plaque names, Dr. L. S. Owings, had the more restless career. Born in Roane County, Tennessee, in 1820, Lewis Sumpter Owings sat in the Texas House in 1855, then moved to Mesilla, where he owned a mine. In 1860 a Tucson convention chose him provisional governor of an Arizona Territory Congress never recognized; in March 1861 secession conventions made him governor of Confederate Arizona until John Baylor took over that August. He ended the war governing in exile from San Antonio, later served briefly as mayor of Denison, and died in 1875.

What the plaque says

Thomas Ruckman (November 8, 1826 - December 2, 1914) Founding father of Karnes County, Ruckman was born in Northumberland County, Pennsylvania. He graduated in 1848 from the College of New Jersey (now Princeton University) and taught in South Carolina for a year. But the lure of Texas-- then a frontier state where land was cheap and opportunity boundless-- brought him on Christmas morning, 1850, to San Antonio. In 1851 he started a trading post in the little Mexican settlement of Alamita, located on the Old Ox-Cart Road between San Antonio and Goliad. Other businessmen followed his example, and soon Ruckman was able to build a gristmill near the San Antonio River, enlarge his store, and erect a stately home. Soon after, Ruckman took as partner Dr. L. S. Owings, and together they foresaw a metropolis arising at this important and inviting roadstop. Their store once stood near the site of this marker. In 1852, they laid out a new town, which they named "Helena", in honor of Owings' wife. When Karnes County organized in 1854, Helena was chosen county seat. Ruckman was postmaster here, 1854 to 1857, and he continued nearly 40 years as leading merchant and banker. In 1872, he helped found the Helena Academy. He is buried in the Masonic Cemetery of Helena. (1968)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Panna Maria — 4.7 mi
  The Silesian village on a plateau above the San Antonio River that claims the oldest permanent Polish settlement in America, with a church of 1878 and a ceiling found again in 2000.
• Goliad State Park and Historic Site — 33 mi
  Mission Espíritu Santo on the San Antonio River, a mission ranch whose herds seeded Texas cattle country, rebuilt from ruin by the Civilian Conservation Corps in the 1930s.
• Zaragoza Birthplace State Historic Site — 34 mi
  A rebuilt stone house beside La Bahía marking where Ignacio Seguín Zaragoza, the general of the Battle of Puebla and Cinco de Mayo, was born in 1829.
• Presidio La Bahía — 34 mi
  A Spanish fort on its third site since 1749, held in turn by filibusters, insurgents and Fannin's Fort Defiance, rebuilt in stone in the 1960s around a chapel that never fell.

More markers nearby

• Helena — steps away
• Helena Union Church — steps away
• Home of John Ruckman — 0.2 mi
• Town of Panna Maria — 4.8 mi