Walter Moses Burton

Burton is counted the first Black sheriff elected in Texas and the first elected anywhere in the country, and he also led the Fort Bend County Union League. His 1873 Senate win was contested by a White Democrat because his name appeared three different ways on ballots; the Senate seated him on February 20, 1874, with half the session gone. He helped pass the bill that founded Prairie View Normal School. When he left in 1883 he was given an ebony and gold cane. No Black Texan was elected to the state Senate again until Barbara Jordan in 1966.

What the plaque says

Walter Moses Burton (August 9, 1840 - June 4, 1913) Born a slave in North Carolina, Walter Moses Burton was brought to Texas about 1860. At the end of the Civil War, he purchased land from his former owner, Thomas B. Burton, from whom he had also learned to read and write. Walter Burton became a successful farmer and in 1869 was elected sheriff of Fort Bend County. He was elected to the Texas Senate in 1873 and served four terms, representing Fort Bend, Wharton, Waller, and Austin counties. Retiring from the Senate in 1882, he returned to farming and remained active in local politics until his death. (1992)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Brazos Bend State Park — 17 mi
  Oak and pecan bottomland, lakes and alligators on the Brazos River 45 miles from downtown Houston, with the museum's George Observatory in the woods.
• The Menil Collection — 24 mi
  John and Dominique de Menil's free museum in Montrose: a grey-sided Renzo Piano building among bungalows, holding antiquities, Surrealism and art of Oceania under natural light.
• Museum of Fine Arts, Houston — 24 mi
  The oldest art museum in Texas, grown from a 1900 schoolroom art league into a campus of Watkin, Mies van der Rohe and later buildings, with Ima Hogg's Bayou Bend up the bayou.
• Rothko Chapel — 24 mi
  An octagonal chapel open to all faiths, built by the de Menils around fourteen dark canvases by Mark Rothko, with Barnett Newman's Broken Obelisk standing in the pool outside.

More markers nearby

• Thomas Jefferson Smith — steps away
• Site of the Home of Randal Jones — steps away
• John McNabb — steps away
• Morton Cemetery — steps away