Vernon Dalhart

In May 1924 Dalhart recorded The Wreck of the Old 97 for Edison, then recorded it on trial for Victor. Carson Robison played guitar, and the B-side was The Prisoner's Song, which Dalhart had learned from his cousin Guy Massey. He copyrighted the song under Massey's name and split royalties 95 percent to himself and 5 percent to Massey; the rights later returned to the Massey family. In 1939 he recorded six songs as Vernon Dalhart and His Big Cypress Boys, named for the bayou at Jefferson.

What the plaque says

Vernon Dalhart (April 6, 1881 - September 15, 1948) Born in Jefferson, Vernon Dalhart (Marion Try Slaughter II) began his career here at Kahn Saloon, starred later in operas in New York, and recorded for Edison's talking machine. His rendition of "The Prisoner's Song" (1924) was the first folk ballad to sell over a million records, and led to the rise of country music as an American art form. Dalhart is said to have made over 3,500 records, many under assumed names. Nostalgia for Jefferson echoed in his "Caroline," "Bully of the Town," and other hits. Within ten years he earned and lost a fortune, later living in obscurity. Incise in base: Marker sponsored by the Hoblitzelle Foundation.

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

• Kahn Saloon — steps away
• Jefferson C. S. A. — steps away
• Captain William Perry — steps away
• Texas Statesman Charles Allen Culberson — steps away