DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it — and friend, this one's got layers worth savoring. We're talking about Wilbarger County, out here in northwest Texas, and the story starts the way the best ones do: with a name that needed earning. The county was organized in 1858, named in honor of Matthias and Josiah P.
Wilbarger — early Texas settlers, both of them. Now, Matthias shares the honor, sure, but let's be honest about who did the heavy lifting on the fame side of that arrangement. Josiah P.
Wilbarger was a surveyor. And in 1833, near Austin, he had a run-in with Comanches that should have been the end of him. Scalped.
Left for dead. Most men in that situation do not get a county named after them — they just get a sad story told around a fire. But Josiah Wilbarger was not most men.
He put a wool sock on his head. That's what the marker says, and I am not embellishing a syllable — a wool sock on his head, to cover the wound. His neighbors found him the next day and brought him in.
And then this surveyor, this man who had stared down the absolute worst of frontier Texas, went on living for twelve more years. Twelve years after being scalped. The county bearing his name figures he's earned the distinction, and I am inclined to agree.
Now, the county's early days had another anchor worth knowin'. In 1878, Jonathan and C. F.
Doan built an adobe house — and that house marks something significant. It sits at the Red River crossing of the famous Western Cattle Trail, and Jonathan and C. F.
Doan were the first settlers in Wilbarger County itself. That adobe house has been standin' as a landmark at one of the great cattle-trail crossings of the West. Vernon — which used to go by the considerably more evocative name of Eagle Flat — became the county seat in 1881.
And the first railroad reached town in 1886. So there it is. A county born from a name, and the name born from a man who refused to die on the Texas frontier, courtesy of a wool sock and stubborn neighbors.
Some legacies are built on grand speeches. Josiah P. Wilbarger's was built on something a little more practical — and a whole lot harder to forget.
What the marker says
Organized 1858 and named in honor of Matthias and Josiah P. Wilbarger, early Texas settlers. Josiah, a surveyor, had become famous as the man who lived 12 years after being scalped by Comanches, 1833, near Austin. He had saved his life by putting a wool sock on his head; he was rescued next day by neighbors. An adobe house built 1878 by Jonathan and C. F. Doan, the first Wilbarger County settlers, marks the Red River crossing of the famous Western Cattle Trail. Vernon (formerly Eagle Flat) became county seat in 1881. The first railroad reached town, 1886. (1968)