The Sam Rayburn Homesite

Rayburn arrived in Fannin County at five. The Handbook of Texas says his family moved from Tennessee in 1887 to a forty-acre cotton farm near Windom, and this marker stands near the homesite he lived on until 1912. At eighteen he entered East Texas Normal College and, alternating classes with teaching, finished its three-year course in two. He taught for two years, then left for the law. Inspired in part by Senator Joseph Weldon Bailey's career, he won a seat in the Texas House in 1906 and attended law school at the University of Texas between sessions.

What the plaque says

The Sam Rayburn Homesite Samuel Taliaferro Rayburn (1882-1961), son of William Marion and Martha (Waller) Rayburn, was born in Tennessee; moved to Texas, 1887. Educated at East Texas State University and the University of Texas Law School, became lawmaker: Texas House of Representatives, 1906-13 (House Speaker, 1911-13), United States Congress, 1913-61. World famous as Speaker, United States House of Representatives, 17 years, in terms of Presidents F. D. Roosevelt, Harry S Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, J. F. Kennedy. His homesite (1887-1912) was half a mile south of this marker. Incise on base: Marker Sponsors: Jack Kreck, Robert West, John Barrett, Fannin National Bank. (1972)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 12 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Cooper Lake State Park — 24 mi
  Two units on Jim Chapman Lake, a Corps reservoir proposed in the late 1930s, stalled by a lawsuit until 1984 and dedicated in 1991, with a 10.5-mile equestrian trail and wildlife land around it.

More markers nearby

• Bank of Windom — 2.5 mi
• Site of Bartley-Woods School — 3.0 mi
• Gober Garage — 6.0 mi
• Gober Public Schools — 6.1 mi