William Whitaker Reed

The house Reed built in 1850 still exists. Wikipedia, citing a brochure from the Salado visitors center, describes it as hand-hewn oak logs cut from the Little River bottoms, larger than most frontier cabins. Native limestone fireplaces supplied heat and cooking. It had no windows, only small openings to shoot from, because it was meant as shelter and defense at a time when raids were a recurring threat. Members of the Reed family protected the homestead through the generations, and it was restored and moved in 2008 to serve as the Salado Visitors Center.

What the plaque says

William Whitaker Reed (January 23, 1816 - August 21, 1891) A native of Tennessee, William W. Reed came to Texas with his parents, Michael and Martha Reed, in 1833 and joined Robertson's colony in 1834. His land grant was situated near his parents' land on the south bank of the Little River. The family survived "The Runaway Scrape" during the Texas Revolution, after which William W. Reed and his brother, Jefferson Reed, joined the Republic of Texas Army. William Reed was among those who buried the remains of Colonel James W. Fannin's men at Goliad. After the war he returned to his homestead and married Emeline Cobb (1825-1890); they had ten children. In 1850 Reed participated in the election of a commissioners court to organize Bell County. He was elected the first county sheriff and served two terms. Reed died in 1891 and was buried on his land. (2000)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 7.6 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Mother Neff State Park — 19 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• Bell County Courthouses — steps away
• Peter Hansbrough Bell — steps away
• Cochran, Blair and Potts Department Store — steps away
• Site of Early Belton House — 0.2 mi