For 140 years, Thomas P. Moad had been little more than a name on a plaque.
The first El Paso police officer ever killed in the line of duty, Moad was a former Texas Ranger who died in a gunfight on July 11, 1883. His killer fled to Mexico. His story faded into the archives. And for generations, the only people who remembered him were the ones who happened to glance at a list of the fallen on a police station wall.
That changed on May 16, 2026. The Concordia Heritage Association unveiled a dedicated stone monument for Thomas P. Moad at Concordia Cemetery, finally giving El Paso’s first fallen officer the marker he never had. After 140 years, he was officially honored.
A Young Deputy, A Small Plaque, and a Question That Took Decades to Answer
The man who dug Moad’s story out of the archives is retired police officer, writer, and historian Harry Kirk…