Site of the Organization of the Texas Forestry Association

The association that organized in Temple in 1914 is now headquartered in Lufkin, a private nonprofit financed by dues. The Handbook of Texas lists its work: free pine seedlings for East Texas youths, the tree farm program, youth forestry short courses, and scholarships at Texas A&M and Stephen F. Austin State. It laid out woodland walking trails and set up the Texas Reforestation Foundation, which matches private money for planting trees on nonindustrial timberland. It co-sponsors the Texas Forestry Museum in Lufkin and publishes a monthly newspaper, Texas Forestry.

What the plaque says

Site of the Organization of the Texas Forestry Association One of Texas' oldest conservation organiations. W. Goodrich Jones (1860-1950), who came to Temple as a banker in 1888, felt need for trees in this prairie town. He led planting drives in Temple, and in 1889 saw to the establishment of a statewide Arbor Day. Asked by the Chief U.S. Forester to survey Texas forest resources, Jones later enlisted aid of friends. On Nov. 1, 1914, he and about 20 associates met in the Carnegie Library, then adjacent to the Temple public square, and organized the Texas Forestry Association. This body's original aim, to gain public support for a state Department of Forestry, was accomplished within a year. The Department was created by law in 1915; it was later retitled "Texas Forest Service". The Texas Forestry Association has since aided in the restoration of 11,500,000 acres of commercial forests--lifeblood of a large segment of the Texas economy. Over 2,000 woodland owners, tree farmers, industrialists, professional foresters, and concerned citizens are TFA members. Under such leaders as Jones, who served as president in 1914-21, the TFA has been the voice of forestry in Texas, urging expansin, protection, proper management, and wise use of all forests and related resources. (1974) (1974)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Temple Railroad and Heritage Museum — 0.3 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.
• Mother Neff State Park — 18 mi
  A Leon River park that grew from six acres Isabella Neff left the state in her 1921 will, where Civilian Conservation Corps Company 817 built a stone tower, a pavilion and roads in the 1930s.
• Milam County Courthouse and Jail — 28 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.

More markers nearby

• City of Temple — steps away
• Temple College — steps away
• Knob Creek Lodge No. 401, A.F. & A.M. — steps away
• 42nd Reunion of Hood's Texas Brigade — steps away