"History Written in Stone, Mortar" by Mike Brown, Rockdale Reporter

History Written in Stone, Mortar

Former county official puts together book on Courthouse

By Mike Brown, Reporter Editor

Rockdale Reporter – January 31,2008

Mary Ann Eanes worked in and around the Milam County Courthouse for 35 years.

A former county auditor, and longtime employee of the county tax office, she literally

knows the 117-year-old building from its basement to its third-floor courtroom balcony.

Now she’s preserving that history in a new, lavishly-illustrated book. “The Milam

County Courthouse and its People,” a project of the Milam County Histrocial Commission,

will be published this spring.

It will be the definitive work on the landmark courthouse, a hardback 146-page

publication with the cover styled after the 1970s “Matchless Milam” book of

biographies.

“We are also including photos of most county officials who have served Milam through

the years,” Eanes said. “It’s going to be a book we think most residents of our county

will want to own and treasure.

Labor of Love

It’s a project in the making for more than five years.

Eanes help put together a program of the courthouse rededication ceremony on July 4,

2002. “We felt like a more permanent history of the courthouse was needed,” she said.

I love history. I just kept on working at it, off an don, over the past five and a

half years.

The project became a reality after three individuals, Cameron native Drayton McLane,

attorney Wayne Fisher and historian Joy Graham, loaned funds for publication.

“It was a huge job getting all the photos together,“ Eanes said. “That’s certainly one

of the highlights. You’ll be able to see the faces of many public officials form the

past that most of us know only by their names.”

Best and Worst

The courthouse has certainly seen the best and worst moments from Milam County history.

One of the proudest moments was its dedication on the Fourth of July, 1891, with Masons

from all the county’s lodges laying the cornerstone. A rate photo of that event is

included.

Also included is a photo of one of the county’s darkest days, in November, 1907, when a

mob dragged a man from the jail, located across the street, and hung him from a tree on

the courthouse lawn.

“It turned out the man was innocent,” Eanes said.

The Elusive Goddess

Eanes also covers the extensive courthouse renovation, which began in the late 1990s

and ended with the rededication ceremony in 2002.

“I enjoyed so much all the original things they found during that renovation, columns

and decorations no one knew were there,” she recalled. Those are covered in the book.

During the renovation the courthouse got a new clock tower and goddess of liberty which

crowns the structure.

The topic of what happened to the original goddess of liberty, removed when the clock

tower was dismantled in the 1930s, has become Milam County’s favorite unsolved mystery.

It has disappeared into history. Eanes says she saw it in the back room of a Cameron

business across the street form the courthouse.

“The business was in a building where the tax office is today:, she said. “I had taken

a chair down to get recovered. I was taken into a back room and there was the goddess,

laid out on a table.

"Some people have tried to talk me out of it, saying I didn’t see it,” Eanes laughed.

“But I know what I saw.”

Rockdale ties

She’s a native of the Cameron area but has a histroci tie to South Milam as well.

Her grand-uncle (grandfather’s brother) was R. W. H Kennon who owned The Rockdale

Reporter in the early part of the 20th century. Kennon sold The Rockdale Reporter to

John Esten Cooke in 1911. Ninety-seven years later the Cooke family still owns the

newspaper.

“I love history,” Eanes said. “That’s why this book is so important to me.”

“The Milam County Courthouse and it People” is priced at $40.00. Shipping charges will

be $5.00. After the commission meets in mid_February, pre-sale information will be

available.

Order your copy of The Milam County Courthouse and its People

All credit for this article goes to
Mike Brown and The Rockdale Reporter