Robert Lee Bobbitt
Medina County, Medina County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Robert Lee Bobbitt was born near Hillsboro, Texas, the son of Joseph A. and Laura Duff Bobbitt. He graduated from North Texas Normal College in 1911, and from the University of Texas Law School in 1915. After opening a law practice in Laredo, Bobbitt married Mary B. Westbrook on April 20, 1918, while an officer in the 90th Infantry Division during World War I. Bobbitt was elected to the Texas Legislature in 1923, served three two-year terms, the last as Speaker of the House of Representatives, and was appointed Attorney General in 1929. He returned to private practice in San Antonio in 1931, and served on the Board of Directors of the Texas College of Arts and Industries. In 1935, he was selected as an Associate Justice of the San Antonio Court of Civil Appeals, a post from which he resigned in 1937 to receive an appointment as the Chairman of the Texas Highway Commission. During Bobbitt's six-year term, the Texas Highway Department made great strides toward a goal of a connected system of paved roads in the state. In 1944, Bobbitt was a presidential elector, and, in 1958, was appointed to his last public service post, as a member of the Board of Regents of North Texas State College, his Alma Mater. 1974
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Robert Lee Bobbitt rose from a North Texas farm to the heights of state government, serving as a World War I infantry officer, a legislator, Speaker of the Texas House, and Attorney General by 1929. As chairman of the Texas Highway Commission from 1937, he helped drive the state toward a connected system of paved roads during a transformative era for travel. His long public career touched nearly every branch of Texas government across four decades.
Why it matters
Bobbitt's tenure over the highway commission helped usher Texas into the automobile age, a quiet revolution in mobility that reshaped how Americans lived and worked.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Robert Lee Bobbitt
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Devine Evergreen Cemetery
Devine, TX
The earliest graves in this Medina County cemetery belong to settlers killed by Native American raiders in the early 1870s, including seventeen-year-old Isaac Galbreath, whose father — a Texas Ranger and Mexican War veteran — also rests here. The town of Devine grew up in 1881 when the International and Great Northern Railroad reached the area, and landowner P.C. Hattox deeded the original acreage for the cemetery in 1891. A cemetery association has cared for the grounds ever since.
City Hotel
La Coste, TX
Alsatian immigrant and local developer Emil Schmidt built the City Hotel in 1912, bringing public lodging to La Coste for the first time. Its spot near the railroad depot made it a magnet for the salesmen, railroad crews, and dam builders passing through, and its verandas and restaurant were an instant success. Under Gus and 'Ma' Maggie Keller after 1928, its back-room saloon—famously dodging Prohibition raids through well-timed phone calls—became the stuff of local legend, its walls and ceiling covered in bottle caps.
Vance Hotel and Store
Castroville, TX
Built in 1849 of local limestone and cypress, this thick-walled building shows the Alsatian architecture that immigrant colonists brought to Castroville. It began as the home, store, and post office of Swiss merchant Caesar Monod, and by the 1860s John and Rowena Vance had added a store wing and a second story of guest rooms. With a nearby bath house and kitchen, the Vance Hotel offered rest to travelers on the Eagle Pass–San Antonio Road.
Landmark Inn
Castroville, TX
These weathered limestone buildings rose beside the Medina River ford on the old Eagle Pass–San Antonio road, where Alsatian colonist Michel Simon settled in 1844 as part of Henri Castro's immigrant colony. Later owners turned a home and store into a wash house, residence, and two-story hotel, while a riverside mill built in 1854 was modernized over the years and even generated hydroelectricity by the 1920s. Ruth Lawler kept up the old tradition of hospitality at her "Landmark Inn" before deeding it to the state in 1974.