Judge E. J. Simkins House

The Handbook of Texas says Eldred Simkins and his brother William organized the Florida Ku Klux Klan before the brothers moved to Corsicana in 1871, a fact the plaque leaves out. The Handbook credits Eldred with helping create the Railroad Commission as a state senator and with raising money as a University of Texas regent. William later taught law in Austin and lectured on what the Handbook calls racist exploits during Reconstruction in Florida. In 2010 the university dropped both brothers' names from a dormitory and a green space because of their Klan role.

What the plaque says

Judge E. J. Simkins House Eldred James Simkins (1838-1902) then of South Carolina, served 4 years in the Confederate army. A brother, William S. Simkins was credited with firing the first shot of the Civil War at Fort Sumter, April 12, 1861. E. J. Simkins moved here in 1871, established a law practice, and built the first rooms of this home in 1873. He was a regent of the University of Texas, 1881-93; served as a state senator, 1887-92; and as a justice on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals, 1893-95. Simkins helped draft the law creating the Texas Railroad Commission and wrote a noted volume on jurisprudence. (1975)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 0.6 mi
  The pipes and drilling tower mark where a city water well struck oil on June 9, 1894, the start of the first Texas field to produce oil and gas in important quantities.
• Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery — 20 mi
  The Freestone County grave of the Texas blues singer Blind Lemon Jefferson, who recorded for Paramount in Chicago from 1926 and died there in December 1929.
• Ellis County Courthouse — 30 mi
  J. Riely Gordon's courthouse of 1897 in Pecos red sandstone and pink granite, with twenty-one carved stone faces and two cornerstones left by a quarrel over its building.

More markers nearby

• Corsicana in 1860-1872 — steps away
• Thomas Ingles Smith — steps away
• Jose Antonio Navarro — steps away
• Site of the First Courthouse — steps away