The Brooks House

The woman in the Brooks House story was born Annie Stone in Syracuse, New York, in 1854. She and Abraham Rothschild registered as A. Monroe and wife on January 19, 1877. About a week after he left town alone, Sarah King found her body near a twisted oak, shot in the head, and Jefferson citizens paid for her burial at Oakwood Cemetery. Her grave stayed unmarked until the 1930s, when E. B. McDonald set a headstone; he admitted it in 1941. Rothschild was convicted in 1878, retried in Jefferson in 1880 and found not guilty.

What the plaque says

The Brooks House Built 1872 in Victorian style, with long galleries, bay window, 4 gables. Then a hotel, it became famous when guest "Diamond Bessie" Moore was killed west of town at a picnic in 1877. Fellow guest Abe Rothchild, cited for murder, was freed after sensational trial-- later subject of a drama. (1971)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Excelsior House Hotel — steps away
  A brick-and-timber hotel at 211 West Austin that began as a river captain's boarding house in 1858 and was revived by a garden club in 1959, and still takes guests with rosewood furniture.
• Jefferson Historical Museum — steps away
  A four-floor museum in Jefferson's 1888-90 federal post office and courthouse, with rooms for African-American history, Jewish heritage, the Caddo and Diamond Bessie, bought by the historical society in 1965 for $8,100.
• Caddo Lake State Park — 11 mi
  A Civilian Conservation Corps park on the Texas shore of Caddo Lake, where the Caddo told of a lake made by wind-driven water and visitors now paddle Big Cypress Bayou past moss-hung bald cypress.
• Caddo Lake National Wildlife Refuge — 12 mi
  Wetlands and woods on part of a former ammunition plant, now a refuge for wood ducks, prothonotary warblers and alligator snapping turtles, with four easy trails and a free visitor center on a Ramsar lake.

More markers nearby

• Immaculate Conception Catholic Church — steps away
• First National Bank of Jefferson — steps away
• First Texas Artificial Gas Plant — steps away
• Sterne Fountain — steps away