Roberts County
Miami, Roberts County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Formed from Young and Bexar territories. Created August 21, 1876. Organized January 10, 1889. Named in honor of John S. Roberts, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and Oran Milo Roberts, Governor of Texas, 1878-1882. County seat, Miami, to October, 1889; Parnell, to August 1, 1898, Miami, since.
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Carved from earlier Young and Bexar territories, Roberts County was created in 1876 and organized in 1889 on the sparsely settled Texas Panhandle. It carries a double namesake: John S. Roberts, a signer of the Texas Declaration of Independence, and Oran Milo Roberts, who served as governor from 1878 to 1882. Its county seat bounced between Miami and Parnell before Miami secured it permanently in 1898.
Why it matters
The county's naming ties the Panhandle's late-19th-century organization back to the founding generation of the Texas Republic.
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Related people
- · John S. Roberts
- · Oran Milo Roberts
Related events
- · Texas Declaration of Independence
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Miami Cemetery
Miami, TX
The town of Miami took shape when the Santa Fe's Southern Kansas branch pushed through in 1887, and its cemetery followed close behind, with pioneer William T. Lard's reinterred grave among the earliest. In 1900 the Scottish-owned Cresswell Ranche & Cattle Company sold Roberts County several acres for a burying ground, deeded to Judge S.G. Carter for a single dollar. Shaded by cedar and cypress in the open Panhandle style, it holds Civil War veterans, soldiers of two world wars and Korea, and two Texas Rangers.
Miami Railroad Depot
Miami, TX
When the Southern Kansas Railway Company of Texas laid track through Roberts County in 1887, the town of Miami sprang up at the end of the line as a workers' camp with a tent hotel and a field kitchen. The railroad sank a public water well and strung telegraph lines to nearby Fort Elliott, and passengers and supplies for the fort and the town of Mobeetie began arriving by rail. This depot was built in 1888, passed to the Santa Fe Railroad in 1899, and stayed in service until 1978.
Cottage Hotel
Miami, TX
Widowed in 1893, Lizzie Lard built the Cottage Hotel with her prominent family's help and opened it in 1895 to support her two daughters — a woman making her own way on the Texas Panhandle frontier. As Miami became the county seat and a regional trade hub, the hotel thrived, its parlor a favorite meeting spot for businessmen and young people alike. Through a string of owners and names it operated for decades, and after a stretch as a private residence it was restored in the early 1990s to serve once more as an inn.
Route of Marcy Trail
Canadian, TX
In 1849 the resourceful Army Captain R. B. Marcy blazed this overland route across the Texas Panhandle, best known as a branch of the great California gold trail carrying emigrants west. His wagon roads were later eyed in 1853 as the path for the nation's first transcontinental railroad, until the Civil War pushed that dream to northern routes. The trail's importance faded once the railroad finally reached the county in 1887.