John and Laura Miller House
Frankston, Anderson County, Texas
Marker Inscription
John and Laura Miller built this simple center passage house on this 500-acre site prior to 1870. They had come to Texas from Alabama several years earlier with John's parents, Samuel and Martha Miller, who established a 7,000-acre plantation in the area. John died in 1872, and Laura continued to live in the home until 1900. The Miller family grew in prominence in the area. Laura's niece, Frankie Miller, gave a portion of the land surrounding Samuel and Martha Miller's original plantation house for a new town site when the railroad was built in 1900. The new town was named Frankston in her honor. Laura Miller moved to Athens to live with her daughter, Sallie Jack Murchison, in 1900. She leased her house to Homer Garrison, Sr., and his wife Mattie Milam Garrison. Their oldest son, Homer Garrison, Jr., was born in the Miller House in 1901. He joined the Texas Highway Patrol when it was organized in 1930, and became director of the Department of Public Safety (DPS) and colonel of the Texas Rangers in 1938. During a distinguished 38-year career with the DPS, Garrison developed major programs including law enforcement training and communications, crime prevention, traffic safety and education. Honored for his outstanding contributions to the state of Texas, Homer Garrison, Jr., was buried at the Texas State Cemetery in Austin upon his death in 1968. The Miller House displays Greek Revival elements in its symmetrical facade and full-width porch graced by classically inspired box columns. Witness to generations of Anderson County history, the house and many of its original features evolved from the antebellum era to meet the needs of its occupants. (1999)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
John and Laura Miller built this center-passage house before 1870 on a 500-acre tract, having come to Texas from Alabama with John's parents, who had established a large plantation nearby. Their niece Frankie Miller later gave land for the railroad town of Frankston, named in her honor. In 1901 the house was the birthplace of Homer Garrison, Jr., who would direct the Texas Department of Public Safety and lead the Texas Rangers for three decades.
Why it matters
The Greek Revival home links the antebellum plantation settlement of East Texas to the twentieth-century figure who modernized the state's law enforcement.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · John Miller
- · Laura Miller
- · Homer Garrison, Jr.
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Freeman Farm
Frankston, TX
William Franklin Freeman and his first wife came to Texas from Alabama around 1849 and settled south of Kickapoo in Anderson County, where in the 1850s they raised a homestead of hand-hewn lumber and site-made brick. Their self-sustaining plantation eventually spanned more than 3,000 acres, worked by the family and the enslaved people they held, and included a blacksmith shop, cotton gin, syrup mill, and smokehouse. Freeman served as county commissioner and headed nearby Kickapoo College, and the farm even housed the local post office.
Bethel Church and Cemetery
Frankston, TX
Bethel Primitive Baptist Church of Christ was established in 1853 within an association organized by frontier preacher Daniel Parker, holding services one weekend a month with communion, foot washings, and unaccompanied sacred-harp singing. It was the heart of the Sandflat community until the railroad bypassed the area for Frankston in 1900 and the town slowly emptied; worship ended in the 1940s. The cemetery, holding veterans of the Civil War and both World Wars, is what remains.
Cuney
Cuney, TX
This community began in 1870 when Andrew "Andy" Bragg and Nelson Sneed, former slaves turned farmers, settled here and were joined by other freedmen landowners and tradesmen. Promoted after 1916 by banker H. L. Price as a commercial and agricultural center for Black Texans, the town was renamed Cuney to honor the prominent leader Norris Wright Cuney and grew quickly with churches, stores, gins, sawmills, and a rail station. Falling farm prices after World War I sent residents elsewhere, leaving Cuney a quiet reminder of its founders' ambitions.
First Gravesite of Cynthia Ann Parker
Brushy Creek, TX
Cynthia Ann Parker was captured as a child during an 1836 raid on Fort Parker and grew up among the Comanche, marrying a chief and raising a family fully within Comanche life. Recaptured by Texas Rangers in 1860, she was torn from the only world she knew and never adjusted, while her son Quanah Parker became the last great Comanche war chief. First buried at this spot, her remains were moved twice more before final rest at Fort Sill.