Addie M. Graham

Her husband, Edwin Smith Graham, was born in Louisville on February 15, 1831, the son of Gen. Robert and Roxana (Winchell) Graham. He and his brother Gustavus worked in their father's cotton business and on Kentucky's Glasco oil field, and after the Civil War they joined the Texas Emigration and Land Company of Louisville. Edwin and Addie had five children. He died in Spokane and was buried in Graham. In 1921 Addie and her son Malcolm set up the Graham Foundation to fund the city's growth, and she was responsible for founding the Eden Home for the aged.

What the plaque says

Born in Indiana in 1843, Agnes Mary ("Addie") Kinter married Edwin Smith Graham in 1865. Upon hearing of the opportunities for land development in Texas, Graham traveled to Texas many times during the 1870s. In 1872, he and his brother, G. A., founded this town. They gave land for a county courthouse and set aside lots for churches, schools, and cemeteries. In 1879, E. S. and Addie Graham brought their children to live in the new town. Twelve years later, they moved to Spokane, Washington, where Col. Graham had other business ventures. He died there in 1899. Addie Graham returned to Graham and continued her husband's philanthropic efforts. She contributed to the building of a city auditorium, endowed a Bible teaching position in the Graham schools, and donated land on which was built a home for the aged poor of the county. In 1907, the city's first water pumping station was built to replace the individual wells and cisterns that had been used since the town's founding. The water remained untreated, however, until 1910, when Addie Graham gave the money for a filtering plant. The facility, built at this site, was in use for 75 years. Addie Graham died in 1929. Her contributions have had a lasting impact on the town's growth and development. Texas Sesquicentennial 1836-1986

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Old Post Office Museum and Art Center — 0.6 mi
  Graham's 1936 Art Moderne post office, with a New Deal mural by Alexandre Hogue inside, now the free museum of Young County in the town where the Texas cattle raisers first organized.
• Fort Belknap — 8.8 mi
  The 1851 northern anchor of the first Texas frontier forts, on the Brazos below Newcastle, a Butterfield stop and the post beside the Brazos Reservation until its people were driven out in 1859.
• Fort Richardson State Park and Historic Site — 27 mi
  The northernmost post of the Texas frontier line, outside Jacksboro, where a stone hospital and six other buildings stand from 1867 and a later Guard unit became the Lost Battalion.

More markers nearby

• Cattle Raisers Association Oak — 0.5 mi
• An 1890 Bank Building — 0.6 mi
• Site of Third County Courthouse — 0.7 mi
• Standpipe Mountain — 0.7 mi