Historical Marker
Rawleigh Porteus Smyth
Historical marker location:
100 S Joliet, Plainview, Texas
( Plainview Cemetery)
Marker installed: 1975
(August 4, 1855 - February 2, 1941)
An Austin native and graduate of the Texas Military Institute, R.P. Smyth became a Brigadier General after Spanish American War duty. As a surveyor, he ran boundaries (1887) of the Two Buckle and other South Plains ranches and platted towns of Plainview, Happy, Tulia, Kress. Married Florence Tucker (d. 1894); was a Masonic leader. As a state legislator, 1897, helped make laws to aid Plains settlers. As an irrigation advocate, helped to create area's agricultural empire.
Recorded 1975.