Walter Prescott Webb

The Handbook of Texas says Webb's family moved from Aberdeen, Mississippi, to Rusk County, then Panola County, and then west past the 100th meridian, and it ties the contrast between wooded East and dry West to his later writing. The Great Plains (1931) argued that westward settlement stalled at the 98th meridian until the six-shooter, barbed wire and the windmill let it continue. The book won Columbia University's Loubat Prize. In 1939 he became director of the Texas State Historical Association, where he launched the project that became the Handbook of Texas, published in 1952.

What the plaque says

Walter Prescott Webb (April 3, 1888 - March 8, 1963) The world-renowned American historian Walter Prescott Webb was born near this site. His parents were Casner P. and Mary Elizabeth (Kyle) Webb. C. P. Webb farmed and taught school. The family moved in 1893 to the edge of central West Texas. There a startling new terrain spurred young Walter to study the influence of the frontier on American history. Alternately studying and teaching, Walter Webb earned his B. A. Degree in 1915, his M. A. in 1920, and his Ph. D. in 1932, all at the University of Texas. In 1918 he joined the history faculty of the University in Austin, where he taught for 45 years. Visiting lectureships in the U. S. and abroad included a term as Harmsworth professor at Oxford University in England. An inspiring teacher, he molded a generation of historians and scholarly writers. "The Great Plains," "The Texas Rangers," "Divided We Stand," "The Great Frontier," and his other books are works of splendid vision. Recipient of many honors and offices, he was the first southwesterner to serve as president of the American Historical Association. He married (1) Jane Oliphant, by whom he had one daughter, Mildred (Mrs. W. B. Bugg), and (2) Mrs. Terrell Maverick. He is buried in the Texas State Cemetery. (1978)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Tex Ritter Museum and Texas Country Music Hall of Fame — 12 mi
  Carthage's country music museum, with Tex Ritter's boots, guitars and saddles in a room styled like a movie theater, and exhibits on other Texas stars, Jim Reeves among them.
• New London Museum and Cenotaph — 30 mi
  A volunteer-run museum beside the pink granite cenotaph for the March 1937 school gas explosion, holding a model of the school, a blackboard from that day and an odorizer device.
• East Texas Oil Museum — 33 mi
  A Kilgore College museum that rebuilds the 1930s oil boom in a full-scale Boomtown with a general store, drugstore and newspaper office, plus dioramas, films and antiques given by East Texans.

More markers nearby

• Church Bethel — 4.4 mi
• Allison Chapel United Methodist Church — 8.3 mi
• Patrick Community — 9.1 mi
• Ebenezer United Methodist Church — 9.1 mi