TEMPLE HOUSTON: SAM HOUSTON’S SON

TEMPLE LEA HOUSTON (August 12th, 1860-August 15th, 1905) – This future gunslinging lawyer and last child of Sam Houston with his wife Margaret Lea-Houston was born in the Governor’s Mansion in Austin, TX. His storied father, the first president of the short-lived Republic of Texas was then serving as governor for the state of Texas.

Temple’s father died in 1863 and his mother passed away in 1867, from which point the boy was raised by his older sister and her family in Georgetown, TX. In 1873 he ran away to serve in a cattle drive from Texas to what is now North Dakota, then worked on a riverboat to earn his way back down south to New Orleans.

It was during this time that Temple met an old friend of his father, who arranged a job for the young man as a Senate Page in Washington, DC. Working in that capacity for 3 years, Temple developed an ambition to study law and enter politics himself someday.

In 1877 Temple Houston traveled to College Station, TX to enroll in the Agricultural & Mechanical College, the future Texas A&M University. After a few years he transferred to Baylor University in Waco, TX because of its superior pre-law programs. 

 Temple graduated with law honors from Baylor in 1880 and in 1881 passed the bar to become the youngest lawyer in Texas at the time. He was soon appointed State Attorney for Brazoria County, TX, and in 1882 he was appointed as the first District Attorney for the Texas Panhandle, headquartered in Mobeetie, TX.

Temple Houston’s legend began forming around this time. His jurisdiction covered Mobeetie, Tascosa and Clarendon, 3 towns that were widely scattered in a 14,000 square mile area due to the sparse population of that part of Texas at the time. Most of his cases involved prosecuting killings, assaults, rustling and prostitution.

Houston always wore an ivory handled Colt revolver which he nicknamed Old Betsy. The gun was necessary for the dangerous trips to and from the 3 towns in which he prosecuted lawbreakers. Temple also wore a buckskin coat from Mexico and sported a handwoven sombrero with a Texas Eagle on the front. 

Our 6-ft tall hero stayed in practice with his gun and used it to kill small game when camping out in his travels among his trio of towns. Accounts of Temple’s skill with Old Betsy grew more and more embellished over time and he was hailed as “the best shot in the west” on somewhat dubious grounds.

Temple himself was said to help fuel the Tall Tales about his gunmanship to discourage allies of the desperadoes he prosecuted from trying to waylay him as he made his way from town to town. Stories – some of them true – spread about the young man having to draw his pistol in self-defense against such outlaws as well as against random bandits.

On Valentine’s Day, February 14th, 1883, Temple Houston married Laura Cross in the Texas Panhandle near Fort Elliott. Of their 7 children, only 4 survived past infancy and 1 of those – their daughter Samantha – died from falling down the stairs at Austin’s iconic Driskill Hotel in 1887.

The Houstons had moved to the hotel in 1885 when Temple started his 1885-1889 term as a Texas State Senator. On May 18th of 1888, a crowd of over 50,000 had turned out for Houston’s speech dedicating the freshly completed new State Capitol Building.

After serving his term in the Texas Senate, Temple started a private law practice and thrived. In 1893 our hero took part in that year’s Oklahoma Land Run in September and secured a stretch of property near the new town of Woodward.

Come 1894 Houston moved his family to Woodward and resumed practicing law, ultimately becoming legal counsel for the renowned Atchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway. The lawyer would periodically take on pro bono cases and also worked toward statehood for Oklahoma Territory.

In October of 1895, Temple became involved in an argument at Woodward’s Cabinet Saloon with rival attorneys Ed and John Jennings. The argument escalated to a gunfight, with Houston shooting Ed dead and wounding John.

Temple was found not guilty on self-defense grounds in 1896. John Jennings’ brother Frank and his other brother Al Jennings, another attorney, moved out of Woodward. In 1897 Al Jennings became famous as a lawyer turned outlaw, with Frank serving as a fellow member of the Al Jennings Gang.

Houston had long held a reputation for his oratorical skills, peppering his courtroom and political pronouncements with countless classical and Biblical allusions. His dedication speech for the Texas Capitol Building is still quoted, but the lawyer’s most famous work of public speaking is “the Soiled Dove Speech.”

Also known as “The Plea for a Fallen Woman”, this 1899 speech was Temple Houston’s closing argument in defense of accused prostitute Minnie Stacey. The Woodward woman could not afford an attorney, so Temple defended her pro bono and after hearing his emotional closing plea, the jury took just a half an hour to declare a verdict of Not Guilty.

The speech is looked on today as pure schmaltz, but a lawyer needs to know what words will work with the jury they address, and the Soiled Dove Speech has been preserved and can still be read today.

Temple Houston continued practicing law and working for Oklahoma statehood, even promising supporters that if statehood was granted, he would campaign to become Oklahoma’s first governor. A few years before Oklahoma statehood, Temple Lea Houston died of a cerebral hemorrhage on August 15th, 1905. He was only 45 years old.

Posthumous legends about this exceptional man are too many to count. He was depicted in movies and television shows, and he was the basis for a few fictional heroes in novels about the Wild West.

Perhaps the most enduring fictional portrait of Temple Houston came in the eponymous television series about him. Temple Houston starred Jeffrey Hunter and ran from September 19th, 1963 to April 2nd, 1964.

This was another seasonal post for Frontierado, coming up on Friday, August 4th this year.