W. J. "Jeff" Williams

According to the City of Plainview, Williams was born in 1881 and taught school briefly at eighteen before winning the county surveyor's office at twenty-one, though he never formally finished high school. He learned surveying from Willis Day Twichell in Amarillo and co-owned the Amarillo Daily News from 1910 to 1916, returning to Plainview that year. He may have built the first wind-powered electrical charger, and in the mid-1920s he wrote to physicist Albert A. Michelson asking whether his light-speed method could be adapted to measure land. Plainview named him to its 2008 Centennial Circle of Honor.

What the plaque says

W. J. "Jeff" Williams Born in Johnson County, Texas, Jeff Williams came to Hale County in 1896. Largely self-taught, he began surveying in 1902 and worked on the XIT Ranch resurvey of 1909. He was Potter County surveyor, 1907-15, and held the same post in Hale County, 1902-06 and 1920-73. Dividing ranch lands, plotting roads and townsites, and solving boundary disputes, Williams helped open the South Plains for settlement. He married Ethel Williams in 1906, and they had four children. Recorded - 1975

Where it stands

More markers nearby

• Emma Grigsby Meharg — steps away
• Rawleigh Porteus Smyth — steps away
• Edwin Lowden Lowe — steps away
• Plainview Cemetery and Memorial Park — steps away