Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery

Blind Lemon Jefferson was born on a farm at Couchman, near Wortham. The Handbook of Texas gives his birth as September 24, 1893 by census record and October 26, 1894 by his World War I draft registration. By his teens he was in Dallas, and around 1912 he began playing Deep Ellum and the Central Track, where he met Huddie Ledbetter, later known as Lead Belly. The two worked together.

A Paramount Records scout found him in 1925 and took him to Chicago. From 1926 to 1929 he recorded 110 sides, counting alternate takes, by the Handbook's count; the state marker says 79 recordings. The Handbook calls him the first folk blues singer-guitarist to reach a national audience. His songs include "Matchbox Blues," "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" and "That Black Snake Moan." He died in Chicago on December 22, 1929, and was buried in the Wortham cemetery.

His grave stood unmarked until a Texas Historical Commission grave marker went up in 1967. The marker credits him with influencing Louis Armstrong, Bessie Smith and others. He entered the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame in 1980. In 1997 Wortham began a blues festival in his name and a granite headstone was placed on the grave, and in 2007 the cemetery was renamed Blind Lemon Memorial Cemetery. It is on the west side of State Highway 14, and the marker is not on private property.