Site of First Home in Cameron

Shapley Ross is easy to lose behind his son. The Handbook of Texas has him arriving in Milam County in 1839 and settling at Nashville. In 1842 he sat on a committee of five asked to choose a permanent county seat, four years before Cameron was bought and named. He rode with Jack Hays's rangers in 1842, joined the Snively expedition in 1843 and left for Austin in 1845. At Waco he built the first hotel and became postmaster; the Handbook's entry on his son Sul calls him a slave owner there.

What the plaque says

Site of First Home in Cameron Boyhood home of L. S. "Sul" Ross (1838-1898), Texas Governor from 1887 to 1891. His father Shapley P. Ross, Indian agent and Ranger, built house after moving here about 1841; he chose this site because it had a good spring. L. S. Ross, who was a Confederate general, served as president of Texas A & M College after holding office as governor. In 1890 this pavilion was erected to accommodate band concerts, meetings and rallies. It was the scene in 1892 of a landmark debate between two gubernatorial candidates: Gov. James S. Hogg and George Clark. (1969)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 0.3 mi
  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

• Milam County — 0.2 mi
• Mrs. Edna Westbrook Trigg — 0.2 mi
• First United Methodist Church of Cameron — 0.2 mi
• First National Bank of Cameron — 0.3 mi