Farmers Mutual Protective Association of Texas (RVOS)

By 1890 Ocker had a general store, a mill and gin, a sorghum plant, a doctor and a barber, and about seventy-eight Czech families lived around it by 1893. The town took its name from B. Ocker, the storekeeper and first postmaster. The farmers' insurance society formed here in 1901 is the reason for the marker. The town itself faded after losing its post office in 1904 and had about twenty people by 1933. Two miles south, the Ocker Brethren Church still stood in 1988.

What the plaque says

Farmers Mutual Protective Association of Texas (RVOS) The Farmers Mutual Protective Association of Texas (Rolnicky Vzajemne Ochranny Spolek Statu Texasu) was organized in the community of Ocker (400' NW) by nine men of Czechoslovakian descent on February 27, 1901. Created as a means of providing farmers and rural citizens with insurance coverage, the association was a cooperative effort of neighbors ready to help each other in times of need. By the rules of the non-profit organization, only rural property was insurable, and each member was obligated to pay a share of any losses sustained by fellow members. In 1933, city property became insurable. Association officers worked from their homes until 1946, when offices were rented in Temple. A home office was built on South 4th Street in 1950, and replaced by a new building at 2301 South 37th Street in 1981. Charter members of the association were: Joseph R. Marek (1856-1936), Martin Stepan (1859-1935), Joseph R. Schiller (1874-1918), Frank J. Wotipka (1847-1933), Josef Wentrcek (1860-1922), F. Vincenc Schiller (1849-1941), Jan Baletka (1858-1939), Joseph Schiller (1847-1929), and Jan Zabcik (1856-1916). (1986)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 12 mi
  The Santa Fe depot of 1911 in a railroad town that began in 1880 as a construction camp, now a museum with locomotives and cars parked beside the active rail yard.
• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 18 mi
  Cameron's 1892 Renaissance Revival courthouse and the 1895 St. Louis-built jail beside it, now the county museum, are listed together on the National Register.
• Mother Neff State Park — 27 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.

More markers nearby

• Barclay Cemetery — 1.6 mi
• Zabcikville — 2.3 mi
• Homesite of Theodore Rabroker — 2.5 mi
• Church of the Visitation — 3.9 mi