Oran Milo Roberts

Roberts spent much of his later life teaching law. In 1868 he opened a law school at Gilmer; Sawnie Robertson, later a Texas Supreme Court justice, and George N. Aldredge, later a Dallas district judge, were among his students, according to the Handbook of Texas. When the University of Texas opened in 1883 he became its professor of law and held the post for ten years. Students called him Old Alcalde. He wrote The Elements of Texas Pleading in 1890, a text used for decades. He died at his Austin home on May 19, 1898.

What the plaque says

Oran Milo Roberts (July 9, 1815 - May 19, 1898) A South Carolina-born Alabama legislator, Oran M. Roberts came to San Augustine, Texas in 1841. He served in district and state judicial positions, including the first district court in Canon in 1850, and was president of the Secession Convention in 1861. After service as a colonel in the 11th Regiment, Texas Infantry, his postwar career included a second turn as a state Supreme Court judge; he made the 1877 ruling that ended the Van Zandt County Seat War. Roberts was elected governor of Texas in 1878. He was a law professor at the new University of Texas until 1893. Roberts helped form the Texas State Historical Association in 1895. (1998) Incise on base: Researched by Annette Herndon Plemmons

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Purtis Creek State Park — 16 mi
  A 1,582-acre park straddling the Henderson and Van Zandt county line, built around a 355-acre lake with no-wake fishing, borrowed tackle, a 4.1-mile hike-and-bike trail and a nature path.
• Texas Freshwater Fisheries Center — 24 mi
  A Texas Parks and Wildlife hatchery and visitor center in Athens where visitors can borrow tackle and fish a stocked pond, watch native species in gallery tanks and ride a tram around the hatchery.
• No. 1 British Flying Training School Museum — 26 mi
  A free museum at Terrell's airport where about 2,200 RAF cadets learned to fly between 1941 and 1945, with logbooks, uniforms, letters and original training aircraft.
• Governor Hogg Shrine — 29 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.

More markers nearby

• Site of 1896 Van Zandt County Courthouse — steps away
• Cadwell Walton Raines — steps away
• John H. Reagan — steps away
• Dixie Hotel — steps away