County Named for Prominent Confederate Colonel O. M. Roberts

The Handbook of Texas records that in December 1860 Roberts helped take the law into private hands: with John S. Ford and others he printed newspaper calls for a January 8 election of secession delegates, because Governor Sam Houston refused to convene the legislature. As governor from 1879 he cut spending under a pay-as-you-go plan that sold public lands, a policy the Handbook says favored large ranchers and companies in West Texas. He later taught law at the University of Texas, where students called him the Old Alcalde, and was the first president of the Texas State Historical Association.

What the plaque says

1815-1898. President Secession Convention 1861, resulting in comment by Sam Houston, "I don't know what they will do, but Roberts is honest." Raised 11th Texas Infantry. Gallantly led brigade Battle Bayou Bourbeau, La. Chief Justice Texas Supreme Court under Confederacy and state. Federal Reconstruction policy caused his removal from bench 1865, denial U.S. Senate seat 1866. Elected governor by people, 1878 and 1880. A memorial to Texans who served the Confederacy. Erected by the State of Texas 1963.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Roberts County Museum — steps away
  The county museum in Miami's old Santa Fe depot, holding mammoth bones and Clovis points from a 1934 dig, in the cow town that has held a cow-calling contest since 1949.
• Old Mobeetie Jail Museum — 17 mi
  The 1886 stone jail of the Panhandle's first county seat, the buffalo hunters' Hidetown on Sweetwater Creek that ran the courts for fifteen counties before losing its fort, railroad hopes and county seat.
• The Citadelle Art Museum — 21 mi
  A 1910 Baptist church saved from demolition in 1977, made into a family home filled with art, and given to Canadian in 2009 as one of the Panhandle's few art museums.
• River Valley Pioneer Museum — 21 mi
  The Hemphill County museum in Canadian, a Santa Fe division town of 1887 on the river breaks that held one of the first commercial rodeos in Texas and voted itself dry in 1903.

More markers nearby

• Miami Railroad Depot — steps away
• Cottage Hotel — 0.2 mi
• Roberts County — 4.4 mi
• Fossil Beds — 5.5 mi