Lee Simmons

Lee Simmons was a Sherman farm boy who came close to a different life. At twenty-one he was charged with murder after shooting a man in an argument over family honor, and was acquitted on self-defense. As Grayson County sheriff from 1912 he faced a bootleggers' war in Denison and survived an assassination attempt that left three gunshot wounds. Running the Texas prisons from 1930, he built dormitories, started a radio show and the rodeo, and kept the bat; corporal punishment cases fell from 326 in 1929 to 80 by 1935. Escapes by the Clyde Barrow gang embarrassed him.

What the plaque says

Lee Simmons (1873-1957) Ran for sheriff at request of citizens of Denison. Elected in 1912 and served two years. Was appointed by Governor Pat Neff to special commission in 1920's to inspect Texas prison system; named by Governor Dan Moody to prison board, 1928; In 1930 became general manager of prison system, where he made an outstanding record. Organized prison rodeo. Died before completing autobiography "Assignment Huntsville". Recorded, 1967

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 9.5 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 — 24 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

• Judge C. C. Binkley — steps away
• The Rev. J.M. Binkley — steps away
• Jesse P. Loving — steps away
• Aaron S. Mangum — steps away