Rosenberg Family

Corsicana's Jewish community arrived with the railroad in 1871, according to the Institute of Southern Jewish Life. A visitor in 1879 counted twelve families, a B'nai B'rith lodge and a cemetery bought four years earlier. Oil changed the town, and by the end of 1898 it had two congregations: Reform members built the Moroccan-style Temple Beth-El, dedicated in 1900, while Orthodox families met above a dry goods store. In the 1920s a local Klan chapter of about 900 members endorsed businesses as "100% American," which excluded Jewish-owned stores, yet customers mostly shopped by price and quality.

What the plaque says

Rosenberg Family Ben Rosenberg (1862-1929) emigrated from Poland to the United States about 1882. After living several years in Waco, he settled in Corsicana about 1890. Rosenberg soon became the proprietor of the Cotton Exchange Saloon and in 1902 opened the Rosenberg Implement Company. Known for his generosity and his interest in civic affairs, Rosenberg also was active in Corsicana's large Jewish community. This home, which he built for his wife, Rachel (Goldberg), and their son, remained in the Rosenberg family for more than fifty years. (1984)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Petroleum Industry Park — 0.7 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

• Judge John S. Callicutt — steps away
• Joseph S. Cullinan, Pioneer in Texas Oil — steps away
• Fire Station No. 2 — steps away
• Frank Neal Drane — 0.3 mi