The Ward County Courthouse was built in 1940 in a Moderne style as designed by Townes & Funk.
The Texas Legislature carved Ward County from Tom Green County in 1887. The county was organized in 1892 with Barstow as its county seat. The Pioneer Canal Company housed county business until the completion of a sandstone courthouse and jail in 1893. The courthouse was open for other uses, like showing movies, but no dancing was allowed!
In the late 1920s while Barstow was in a decline, oil was discovered near Monahans. About 10 years later, Monahans became the county seat, and “movers ignored the hostile Barstow populace as they picked up the records,” according to June Rayfield Welch, author of The Texas Courthouse Revisited.
The county is named for Thomas William Ward, an early Texas warrior, postmaster, and land commissioner, while the county seat honors John Monahan, who dug the first water well in the area.
The county seat is home to the Monahans Sandhills State Park, which features the unique sport of sand-surfing down dunes of sand. The park includes 3,840 acres of sand dunes, some up to 70 feet high. The park is also home to one of the most interesting arboreal oddities in the United States, a miniature Harvard Oak forest occupying 40,000 acres, which makes it one of the largest oak forests in the country.
The Million Barrel Museum along the eastern edge of Monahans sits on 14.5 acres. The primary attraction is a large, elliptical oil storage tank built in 1928 and designed to hold more than a million barrels of crude oil. Today, the museum plays host to barbeques, dances, cowboy poetry readings, fajita cook-offs, and class reunions. A portion of the tank wall was used to create the 400-seat Meadows Amphitheater, where performances continue to take place.
Pyote is home to two runways 8,400 feet in length used for World War II training flights of B-17 and B-29 bombers at the Pyote Air Force Station. Formerly known as the Pyote Army Air Field, the station was eventually nicknamed Rattlesnake Bomber Base. A museum dedicated to the history of the base is one of the exhibits at the Million Barrel Museum and attracts visitors from around the world.
In 2012, the Monahans Chamber of Commerce honored Ward County with the Merit Award, recognizing the county’s successful efforts to improve the Ward County Coliseum, Convention Center, Senior Citizens Center, and Ward County Library. The county was also honored for helping clear land for prospective businesses, budgeting and constructing a new EMS building, and purchasing equipment for the volunteer fire departments. Finally, the county was recognized for accepting the Million Barrel Museum in order to help make repairs and preserve Ward County history.
Special annual events include the Freedom Festival, the Miss Monahans Scholarship Pageant, the Resolution Run, Christmas in the Dunes, and the Lighted Christmas Parade, to name a few.