Home County of Allison Mayfield, Conservationist

Allison Mayfield reached the bar by the back door. A fever kept him from graduating from Sam Houston Normal Institute, so he taught school for two years, read law in a Tyler office and was admitted in 1883. He opened a practice in Sherman the next year, and in 1889 the city elected him its attorney; his first act was to codify the ordinances. Assistant attorney general and secretary of state came before the Railroad Commission, where his staff called him Chief. A cold from a January 1923 Washington trip sent him home to Sherman to die.

What the plaque says

Home County of Allison Mayfield, Conservationist Opened law practice here, 1884. Became an assistant attorney general of Texas, 1893. Won election, 1897, to Railroad Commission; served 26 years -- 16 years as chairman. The commission had been created in 1891 to regulate shipping rates and practices. In his term as chairman, oil and gas regulation -- a major responsibility -- began with jurisdiction over pipelines, 1917. In 1919 the Legislature made the commission responsible for conservation of oil and gas. In the 1920s proration began. Complete regulation came in the 1930s with the 1,700,000-barrel-a-day production in East Texas. Backed by Texas Rangers, the commission closed the field until conservation rules could be revised. Commission policies were acclaimed when in World War II Texas was able to supply the allies with great stores of oil necessary for victory. The commission's goal is to prevent waste and protect oil and gas reserves by orderly regulation of exploration, production and transportation. Such men as Chairman Mayfield set high ethical standards that have continued in the commission, causing it to merit the confidence of the people and of the petroleum industry. Incise in base: Commemorative series on Texas Railroad Commission; Erected in cooperation with Abell-Hanger Foundation, 1966.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 8.9 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Hagerman National Wildlife Refuge — 11 mi
  A 1946 refuge on the Big Mineral Arm of Lake Texoma, laid over land bought for Denison Dam and the site of the vanished railroad town of Hagerman, now a winter stop for geese.
• Eisenhower State Park — 12 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.
• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 23 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.

More markers nearby

• Grayson County — steps away
• Ninth Texas Cavalry — steps away
• President T. Roosevelt's Visit to Grayson County — steps away
• Peter W. Grayson — steps away