Chief Justice John Edward Hickman

The Handbook of Texas says that in 1952-53 Hickman became the first Texas jurist to chair the National Conference of State Chief Justices. It also records Justice Robert Calvert's remark that Hickman began the practice of full-court consideration of applications for writ of error, so that no litigant's rights would be decided by only one section of the court. Governor Beauford Jester appointed him chief justice, and he qualified on January 7, 1948, won election that year and was reelected in 1954. He retired in 1961 and died in Austin in 1962.

What the plaque says

Chief Justice John Edward Hickman (1883-1962) A distinguished chief justice of the Texas Supreme Court, and a native of Williamson County. Descendant of 1849 settlers from Alabama, he was a son of Nathaniel Franklin and Mary J. Porterfield Hickman. He attended the Liberty Hill Normal and Commercial College, and (with interruptions to teach school) earned a law degree at the University of Texas in 1910. For 16 years he was an attorney in Dublin (Erath County) and Breckenridge (Stephens County). Oil was discovered in both areas, and with boom conditions his practice included some historic cases. Elected Associate Justice (1926), he became in 1928 Chief Justice, Court of Civil Appeals, Eastland. He was appointed to the Supreme Court Commission of Appeals in 1935; became an associate justice of the Texas Supreme Court in 1945; and on Jan. 7, 1948, was appointed Chief Justice -- a post he filled until 1961. He is credited with 433 opinions of the Texas Supreme Court. A devout Christian, he taught a Bible class about 50 years, and served 1921-62 as a trustee of Southern Methodist University. He married (1) Ethel Markward (d. 1921) and (2) Lena Pettit, who survived him. (1971)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Williamson County Courthouse — steps away
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• Inner Space Cavern — 2.1 mi
  A Georgetown cave found in 1963 when highway engineers drilled test holes, holding Pleistocene fossils and 72-degree rooms that visitors reach by an artificial tunnel.
• The Round Rock — 8.6 mi
  A table-shaped stone in Brushy Creek gave Round Rock its name in 1854; the Chisholm Trail crossed the creek near it, and Old Town stayed behind when the railroad pulled the town east.
• Mount Bonnell — 23 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.

More markers nearby

• Judge Greenleaf Fisk — steps away
• In Memory of Robert Jones Rivers — steps away
• Emzy Taylor — steps away
• Williamson County — steps away