The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957 Page: 550
616 p. : ill. (some col.), maps, ports. ; 23 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
of moves instigated to have the Legislature and other official
agencies in their turn recognize this service and manifold other
activities by authorizing the reinterment of Lou Kemp in the
State Cemetery at Austin where he rendered such signal services
to the preservation of the fine values of the Texas heritage. The
appropriateness of the move would seem to have universal ac-
ceptance.
Lou Kemp's hometown Houston Post for November 16, rever-
ently recorded his death as follows:
Louis Wiltz Kemp-one of America's leading authorities on Texas
history-died in Houston Thursday at the age of 75.
Funeral services will be held Saturday at 2 P.M. in the Geo. H. Lewis
& Sons chapel, 405 McGowen Ave. Dr. Neal D. Cannon of Saint Paul's
Methodist Church officiating. Burial will follow in Glenwood
Cemetery.
A tireless researcher of little-known Texas lore, Kemp also gained
nation-wide attention in 1925 with a one-man crusade against corrup-
tion in the state highway commission. Following accusations made by
Kemp, two commissioners resigned under fire and a long series of
grand jury investigations resulted in a state house-cleaning of highway
department procedure and personnel.
However, Kemp's greatest and most lasting fame came from his
research into the web of Texas history-long a tangle of fact and
fanciful fiction. He established the exact circumstances of the signing
of the Texas declaration of independence, those who signed it and
when.
He played a key role in marking the state's important historical
spots during the Texas centennial celebration. His efforts were pri-
marily responsible for moving more than loo prominent early day
Texans from neglected, often forgotten burial places to graves of honor
in Austin's state cemetery.
And the names on the great bronze plaque of the San Jacinto
monument-the men who won the battle of San Jacinto-are there
largely because Louis Kemp researched and sifted those names care-
fully from the crumbling and almost forgotten rosters of a century ago.
Vigorous and active until recent weeks, Kemp spent most of his
adult life as an official of the Texas Company in its asphalt sales divi-
sion. He was the third son born into a family of eight children in
Cameron, Texas, in 1881.
The history bug bit Kemp in 9g2o as his travels around the state
for the Texas Company revealed the neglect accorded the remains and
records of early-day Texas heroes. At his death the Kemp collection of
Texana is exceeded by few private collections in the country. In his
home at 214 Westmoreland Ave. in Houston there are bookshelves to550
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 60, July 1956 - April, 1957, periodical, 1957; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101163/m1/594/: accessed April 19, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.