TXGenWeb Project
USGenWeb Project
TXGenWeb Project
USGenWeb Project
![[Barbwire]](barbwire.gif){kind=small}
Photograph by Milam County Deputy Sheriff Greg Kouba &
Milam County Deputy Sheriff Reese Lockett - 25 July 2003
| Marker Title | First Girl's Tomato Club in Texas |
| Address | Milam County Jail Museum lawn |
| Location | Northwest corner of 201 E. Main & S. Fannin St. |
| City | Cameron |
| Year Marker Erected | 1983 |
| Designations | n/a |
| Text on Marker | The first Girl's Tomato Clubs in Texas were organized in 1912 in Milam County to acquaint young women in rural areas with tomato production and canning techniques. At the request of the United States Department of Agriculture, Mrs. Edna Westbrook Trigg, a local high school principal, agreed to undertake the project. She organized eleven clubs throughout the county, with members ranging in age from ten to eighteen. A similar program for boys, the Corn Clubs, had been instituted in Jack County four years earlier. Each member of the Girl's Tomato Clubs was to produce a tomato crop on one-tenth of an acre of land and then was taught proper canning procedures. The girls exhibited their products at Milano, Rockdale, the 1913 State Fair in Dallas, and the Waco Cotton Palace. So successful were these exhibits that several of the girls started college education funds with the money they raised selling their goods. As the state's first rural girl's organization of its kind, the Tomato Clubs were forerunners of later programs, including 4-H, that were initiated under the supervision of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service. Over time, 4-H has expanded its scope but has maintained the principle objectives of its predecessors. |
| Source | Texas Historical Commission's Texas Historic Sites Atlas Database - July 2003 |
Created on 26 July 2003 and last revised on 20 Apr 2004.