Milam County

The plaque tracks borders. The people are in the Handbook of Texas. The 1847 state census listed 154 enslaved people in Milam County, about 14 percent of the total. By 1860 the free population was 3,633 and the enslaved population had more than tripled to 1,542, thirty percent of everyone. Voters approved secession in 1861 by 468 to 135. After emancipation former slaves founded Liberty Hill, Lick Skillet, Oklahoma and Sneed Chapel, and the Black population reached 10,473 in 1900 before falling to 3,061, under 14 percent, by 1980.

What the plaque says

Milam County A part of Robertson's colony in 1834. A part of the municipality of Viesca, 1835. Named changed to Milam, December 27, 1835 in honor of Benjamin Rush Milam, 1788-1835, who fell at San Antonio. After Burleson and Robertson counties were cut off Nashville became the county seat in 1837. The later creation of Williamson, Bell, McLennan and Falls, reduced Milam County to its present size. Cameron, the county seat since 1846.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — steps away
  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.
• Calvert — 20 mi
  A railroad cotton town of 1868 on State Highway 6 that claimed the largest cotton gin in the world and elected Black men to county and state office during Reconstruction.
• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 28 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.

More markers nearby

• Mrs. Edna Westbrook Trigg — steps away
• Ben Milam — steps away
• First National Bank of Cameron — steps away
• First Girl's Tomato Club in Texas — steps away