Edna Westbrook Trigg in Denton County

Trigg arrived in Denton as a stranger and a "government woman," as the Handbook of Texas puts it, and won people over by traveling by horse and buggy and staying overnight with farm families. She persuaded the City Federation of Denton to let her girls' clubs enter its fall exhibit, and their entries so outdid the town women's that a purse was raised for prize money. Driving over a thousand miles a month, she also introduced a protective diet card meant to guard against pellagra, rickets and goiter. She is buried in Denton's I.O.O.F. Cemetery.

What the plaque says

Edna Westbrook Trigg in Denton County Edna Westbrook Trigg (1868-1946) was the first county home demonstration agent appointed in Texas in 1915, serving in Denton County from February 1916 through December 1937. She was named Denton County home demonstration emeritus from January 1, 1938, until her retirement on July 31, 1945. Previously in Milam County, she served as rural high school principal and "collaborator" for the United States Department of Agriculture as supervisor of Girls Tomato Clubs. Trigg traveled throughout Denton County teaching and advising farm women on vegetable gardening, canning, sewing, cooking, household management and other aspects of daily life. She had to overcome prejudices against government's interference in farming and a woman's interference in a man's work and home life. During World War I, she helped make the county agriculturally self-sufficient by working with farmers to grow more vegetables, attended patriotic meetings three nights a week urging people to purchase Liberty Bonds and held Saturday canning schools to show rural residents how to properly preserve and protect the food they grew. She convinced county commissioners to loan her $350 to purchase twenty community steam canners for use in the precincts. The Hawkeye Demonstration Club, organized in 1919 in the now extinct community of Hawkeye, owned the first community canner. Trigg served on the staff of the College of Industrial Arts (Texas Woman's University) overseeing courses in the methods of home demonstration and was honored in 1971 by the Texas Extension Education Association, Inc. 4-H with a scholarship in her name. On October 18, 1991, Edna Westbrook Trigg was entered into the National Agricultural Center and Hall of Fame. (2015)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Denton County Courthouse-on-the-Square — steps away
  An 1896 courthouse by W. C. Dodson in Denton limestone, pink granite and two sandstones, restored in 2004, now a free county museum on a lawn holding the grave of John B. Denton.
• Wise County Courthouse — 26 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's granite Romanesque courthouse of 1895-96 in Decatur, built after fire destroyed the Second Empire courthouse and set off a fight over the county seat.

More markers nearby

• John B. Denton — steps away
• The City of Denton — steps away
• Denton County — steps away
• Texas Normal College — steps away