The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 48, July 1944 - April, 1945 Page: 94
617 p. : ill., maps, ports. ; 24 cm.View a full description of this periodical.
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Southwestern Historical Quarterly
appreciated both by Captain Hall and Mr. Muir. Can any photo-
graph of the locomotive be furnished?
The following significant information regarding the state
flower of Texas was taken from the Tyler Courier-Times-
Telegraph of April 2, 1944.
The bluebonnet, state flower of Texas, has already begun to open
early blooms in Tyler and in a few weeks more, the flowers will be
at the height of their beauty. What few people know is that a native-born
Tyler woman, Mrs. Sawnie Robertson, was the first person to conceive
the idea of having the bonnet-shaped blossom made the State flower.
The information that Mrs. Robertson was responsible for the blue-
bonnet being adopted as the state flower, was revealed Saturday in an
old Texas Scrapbook printed by the Texas Scrap Book Society of Dallas.
Pace's Texas Scrap Book, as the edition is called, was given recently
to the Tyler Junior College library, along with another Texas literary
collection, by Hampson Gary, formerly of Tyler, but now Solicitor in the
Export-Import Bank in Washington, D. C.
Mrs. Robertson got the Texas chapter of the Colonial Dames of America,
of which she was a member, to petition the Legislature officially to declare
the bluebonnet as state flower. She asked Senator Barry Miller of
Dallas to present the petition and introduce an appropriate concurrent
resolution. This was done, and the Senate and House of Representatives
passed the resolution in the 27th Legislature in 1901.
Born and reared in Tyler, Mrs. Robertson was originally Miss Ellen
Boren, daughter of Samuel H. Boren, East Texas pioneer. She married
Sawnie Robertson, a young Tyler lawyer, and they built and resided in
a home on the present site of Judge F. W. Fischer's residence on the
Noonday Road. They moved to Dallas in 1878 where Robertson attained
statewide fame as a lawyer and was for several years associate justice
of the Supreme Court of Texas. His son, John C. Robertson, was born
in Tyler, and is one of the leading attorneys in Dallas at the present.
Mrs. Robertson's brother, James N. Boren, was a lieutenant in the
heroic First Texas battery of Artillery, CSA, organized and led throughout
the War Between the States by Major James P. Douglas of Tyler and
John J. Goode of Dallas. Lieutenant Boren was killed in action in the
battle of Richmond, Ky. Many older citizens of Tyler recall his and Mrs.
Robertson's sisters who lived here, Mrs. O. Loftin, Mrs. Franklin N.
Gary, Mrs. Charles Goodman and Mrs. Mary Pegues. Two brothers, Capt.
B. N. Boren and R. L. Boren, also lived here until they moved to Dallas
in the 1880's.
The Scrapbook, which gave information about Mrs. Robertson and
her husband, was originally the property of Charles Smith of Beaumont,
a native Smith countian.
The bluebonnets were especially beautiful this spring, and
many of the men in service desired to send bouquets of the94
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Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 48, July 1944 - April, 1945, periodical, 1945; Austin, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth146055/m1/98/: accessed April 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association.