Temple Lea Houston

In the Senate the plaque mentions, Temple Houston sat on the treasury, education, law enforcement and Panhandle grass-lease committees, and wrote or backed bills granting pensions to heirs of Texas war dead and giving the Alamo to San Antonio for preservation. Unpopular causes led him not to seek a third term in 1888, and he lost a bid for attorney general. He then worked mainly as attorney for the Santa Fe railroad, from a practice in Canadian, and in 1891 represented Henry B. Sanborn in an aborted suit over title to Block 88 in Amarillo.

What the plaque says

Temple Lea Houston (August 12, 1860 - August 15, 1905) Born in the Texas Governor's Mansion, the eighth and last child of Sam Houston (1793-1863) and his wife Margaret; educated at Baylor University, Texas A&M, and in a law office, Temple Houston came in 1881 to this region as district attorney for the 35th Judicial District. He married Laura Cross of Mobeetie, 1882. Tall and handsome, he resembled his father-- a fact cited when he ran for the Texas Senate in 1884. He won, and was seated before reaching legal age for the office. While serving in the Senate, he built a home near "Panhandle City." During his two terms, he became a leader in spite of his youth, advancing legislation favorable to frontiersmen in this area. When a new capitol was dedicated in Austin in 1888, he made the major speech, taking pride that lands in the Panhandle had paid for the magnificent building. Amid the ovations of that day were pleas that he run for Governor or United States Congressman, but he declined. About 1893 he moved to Oklahoma and gained added fame as a lawyer and orator. Thus the fledgling of "The Raven" became a legend in his own time. He was the father of two daughters and three sons. The Oklahoma Historical Society has honored him by placing a marker at his grave in Woodward. (1976)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Carson County Square House Museum — steps away
  The 1880s ranch cottage that is the oldest house in the town of Panhandle, at the heart of a twenty-one-building museum of the plains from mammoth hunters to the oil boom.
• Gem Theatre — 16 mi
  Claude's small-town movie house of 1915, restored by the Armstrong County Museum and remembered for the scene in Hud where Homer and Lonnie Bannon sing along to Clementine.
• Hutchinson County Museum — 23 mi
  Borger's museum on the three-mile Main Street of a 1926 oil boom town that drew 45,000 people in ninety days and was put under martial law in 1929.
• Lake Meredith National Recreation Area — 24 mi
  A Canadian River reservoir in 200-foot breaks, built to water the Panhandle's cities, that fell to a record 26 feet deep in 2013 and still rises and falls with the drought.

More markers nearby

• Texas Panhandle Pioneers - The Simms Brothers — steps away
• Old County Bookmobile, First "Inside Service" Bookmobile in Texas — steps away
• Finch-Lord-Nelson and the Founding of Panhandle City — steps away
• Last Great Panhandle Cattle Drive to Montana — steps away