Historical Marker
William Jesse McDonald
Quanah, Hardeman County · Texas
Erected 1970
McDonald was born in Mississippi in 1852; his father was killed at Corinth in 1862. He came to Texas about 1866, studied at Soule's college in New Orleans and kept a store in Mineola, where he met James Stephen Hogg. In Hardeman County he became deputy sheriff and a deputy U.S. marshal. In December 1893 he and Childress County Sheriff John P. Matthews shot each other at the Quanah depot; McDonald recovered and Matthews later died. The Handbook of Texas records both admirers who ranked him among the four great Ranger captains and detractors who saw him as reckless.
What the plaque says
(1852-1918) Fearless frontier law officer. Known for crack marksmanship and lightning-fast disarming of foes. His long-time friend Governor James Hogg made him captain of Co. B, Frontier Battalion, in 1891. There he handled the "Murder Society of San Saba" and Wichita bank robbery. Conducted President Theodore Roosevelt on a wolf hunt in 1904. Was a U.S. marshal under President Woodrow Wilson. First wife was Rhoda Carter; second was Pearl Wilkerson. (1970)
Where it stands
34.30658, -99.73001 · Directions
Worth the stop nearby
- Quanah, Acme and Pacific Depot Museum — 0.8 miThe Spanish Colonial Revival depot of a little railroad that set out for El Paso and never got past Floydada, now Hardeman County's museum alongside the county's 1890 jail.
- Copper Breaks State Park — 13 miRed badlands on the Pease River between Quanah and Crowell, streaked with the green copper that lured a Civil War general here to mine, with longhorns and a dark-sky designation.
- Fire Hall Museum — 22 miCrowell's local museum in the 1922 firehouse on Main Street, in a county-seat town that was almost wiped away by the tornado of April 1942 and rebuilt.
- Red River Valley Museum — 26 miVernon's museum on College Drive, with rooms on the Waggoner ranch empire, Doan's Crossing and early Vernon, and the largest known collection of Electra Waggoner Biggs's art.