Milam County Courthouse

            This is the fourth structure to serve as the Milam County courthouse.  The local Masonic lodge laid the cornerstone for the building on July 4, 1891.  Designed by architect A. O. Watson of Austin, the courthouse at one time featured a second empire style roof and a cupola with at four-sided clock.  The clock was removed and the roof altered in a 1938 renovation project by the federal works progress administration.  As the center of county government for over a century, the courthouse stands as a significant part of Milam County history.

(1991)

Mrs. Edna Westbrook Trigg

(December 30, 1868 – November 15, 1946)

            Pioneer leader of Texas women in rural club while serving as principal of a school near Milano, Mrs. Trigg was asked by the United States Department of Agriculture in 1911 to supervise Texas’ first girls’ tomato club.  Her roll included organization, teaching, and experimentation.  In Aug. 1912, her clubs showed canned products at Milano fair – the state’s first exhibit of this kind, and a great success.

            In 1913-1914, she worked in Childress and Milam Counties, holding canning schools financed by local groups and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.  After enactment of the national and state legislation (1914-1915) established the agricultural extension service of land grant colleges.  Mrs. Trigg became (in 1916) the first county home demonstration agent in Texas.

            Stationed in Denton, she also served on staff of the College of Industrial Arts (now Texas Women’s University), overseeing courses in methods for home demonstration work, assuring its professionalism.

            Edna Trigg was a native of Milam County, daughter of Ervin and Rachel Walker Westbrook.  She married (in 1892) Charles Letman Trigg, and was mother of Charles Westbrook Trigg and Eloise Trigg (later Mrs. Johnson).  Mrs. Trigg is buried in 1.0.0 F. Cemetery, Denton.

(1970)

     Milam County accepted the Official County Flag for the Sesquicentennial adopted by the Texas legislature on 18 February 1985.

     The flag is blue with a large white Lone Star in the center of two concentric white rings near the hoist. Surrounding the Lone Star are 37 smaller gold stars, representing the original counties of Texas created during the era of independence. The inner ring displays 115 red stars for the counties created from 1846 to 1860. The outer ring has 91 blue stars for the counties created between 1861 and 1900 and 11 green stars for those created during the twentieth century. The name of the county and its date of creation appear on the fly with a white-bordered gold star.

     The municipality of Milam was officially named by the Texas Consultation of 1835 to replace the municipality of Viesca, which is assumed to have had identical boundaries with the Sterling C. Robertson colony. Robertson and George Childress represented the municipality of Milam at the Convention of 1836 at Washington-on-the-Brazos. With the passage of laws by the First Congress of the republic organizing county governments on December 19 and 20, 1836, the municipality became Milam County.

     The Milam County Courthouse burned on April 9, 1874 and all records were destroyed. The only surviving item is one surveyor's notebook that contains no genealogical information.
 

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