Governor James Edward Ferguson, Governor Miriam A. Ferguson

James Ferguson's father died when he was four, and he worked the family fields near Salado as a boy. Expelled from Salado College for disobedience, he left home at sixteen and spent two years taking any work he could find in the Far West. Back in Bell County he farmed and worked on a railroad-bridge gang, was admitted to the bar in 1897 and later turned to banking, helping found the Temple State Bank in 1907. In 1914 he refused to submit his name to the antiprohibition elimination convention, and won the nomination by about 40,000 votes.

What the plaque says

Governor James Edward Ferguson (August 31, 1871 - September 21, 1944) Governor Miriam A. Ferguson (June 13, 1875 - June 25, 1961) James Ferguson, son of a Methodist preacher, and Miriam Wallace, daughter of a wealthy farmer, were Bell County natives. They married in 1899 and later settled with their two daughters in Temple. James, running as "Farmer Jim", won the governorship in 1914. His first term saw improvement of rural schools and the prison system, and relief for tenant farmers. In 1917 he began a second term, but within months he was impeached on charges that included mishandling of state funds; convicted by a special session of the 35th Legislature; and removed from office. In 1924 the Texas Supreme Court upheld a law barring him from state office. So Miriam ran for governor in his place. Called "Ma" by the press, Miriam campaigned under the slogan "Two Governors for the Price of One". She beat the Ku Klux Klan candidate and in her first term (1925-1927) supported an anti-mask bill that broke Klan power. Critics attacked her liberal pardoning policy. She defeated Gov. Ross S. Sterling to win her second term (1933-35), In the midst of the Depression. After losing the 1940 Democratic primary, the Fergusons retired from long and colorful political careers. (1977)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Texas State Capitol — steps away
  Austin's fourth statehouse, a Renaissance Revival capitol of 1888 that stands 311 feet to its Goddess of Liberty and was restored after the 1983 fire.
• Bullock Texas State History Museum — 0.6 mi
  The state's history museum at the head of Congress Avenue, built around the hull of La Salle's ship La Belle, raised from Matagorda Bay with 1.8 million artifacts.
• French Legation State Historic Site — 0.7 mi
  A raised pine house built in 1840 and 1841 for France's envoy to the Republic of Texas, who left Austin in a rage over a neighbor's pigs before it was finished.
• Harry Ransom Center — 0.8 mi
  The University of Texas archive where a Gutenberg Bible and the earliest surviving camera photograph are always on view, free, beside the papers of Watergate and the movies.

More markers nearby

• Henry Smith — steps away
• Governor Edmund Jackson Davis — steps away
• Governor Elisha Marshall Pease — steps away
• First Classes of the University of Texas Law School — steps away