There is the Ferguson Home at Seventh and French in Temple, and their 'honeymoon cottage' on Sixth and Penelope Streets in Belton. The Bell County Museum has an extensive collection of Miriam Ferguson letters, doc uments, photos and memorabilia.
All that is appropriate be cause both Jim and Miriam Ferguson were Bell County natives, and their legacy here hangs as heavy as that of Lyndon Johnson's in the Hill Country.
The Fergusons had an impact on Texas politics that lasted for more than 30 years, beginning when Jim Ferguson was elected governor in 1915 and lasting through his 1917 impeachment and two subsequent terms by his wife, who be came the first female governor of Texas in 1924.
Miriam Ferguson became known as 'Ma' Ferguson, partly because of her initials - Miriam Amanda. As a result, Jim Ferguson lives on in popular history as 'Pa.'
Near Sparks, off Highway 95, is a historical marker noting the site where 'Ma' was born on June 13, 1875. The five-room log cabin where she grew up was L-shaped in order to spare the main section of the house if the stove caught fire. Despite the fire-conscious design, the historic old cabin was destroyed by fire in 1926.
Miriam Ferguson - then Miriam Wallace - attended Center Lake School, which later joined with the Post Oak school before being consolidated by the Holland school district in 1927. Later, she attended Salado College and Baylor Female College at Belton.
On the last day of the 19th century, she married Jim Ferguson, who was born in 1871 near Salado.
Jim Ferguson was the first Bell County native to become Texas governor and the only Texas governor to ever be impeached. And while the impeachment dominates any historical consideration of Ferguson, he also left behind some of the most progressive legislation the state had seen up to that time.
But rumors and gossip dogged Jim Ferguson almost from the beginning of his legal and political career. When he passed the bar exam in 1897, it was said he passed the exam by fetching the examiner a bottle of whiskey, that he never answered a single question.
After the Fergusons married, the couple moved into the 'little red honeymoon house' on Penelope Street in Belton, a house that more than suited Mrs. Ferguson.
In the excellent biography of Miriam Ferguson by May Nelson Paulissen and Carl McQueary, the authors write: 'Miriam loved the house so much that she set about to create a flower garden in the yard that surrounded the house. In no time hollyhocks, snapdragons and irises filled the yard, while lattices of climbing roses covered the surrounding fence.'
Today the house is owned by Jane Bugg, a cousin of the state's second female governor, Ann Richards. Bugg runs the antique shop, As Time Goes By from there.
Jim Ferguson's ambitions brought him to Temple where, against Miriam's wishes, he built the Ferguson home at 518 North Seventh Street. The Victorian house is now A Stitch in Time, a quilting store.
Ferguson ran for governor in 1914 largely on the promise to enact a law that would limit the rent landowners could charge tenant farmers. The bill passed but was later deemed unconstitutional.
Under Ferguson's watch, the state approved aid to rural education, passed a compulsory school attendance bill and approved what was at that time the most generous appropriations for state colleges. He initiated prison reform and started the Texas Highway Commission.
At the same time he was involved in a series of scandals and controversies that resulted in a Travis County Grand Jury indicting him on nine counts, including misappropriation of funds and embezzlement. The Senate vote 25-3 to remove Ferguson from office.
Texas voters, still loyal to Ferguson, elected Ma Ferguson as the first female Texas governor in 1924. Though it is widely reported that she was the first female governor in the nation, she was not. She was the first woman to be elected to a full term as governor. Two weeks before Mrs. Ferguson was sworn in, Mrs. Nellie Tayloe Ross of Wyoming was inaugurated to fill out the expired term of her late husband.
Mrs. Ferguson's first administration was marked by controversy that was almost the match of her husband's. She granted pardons to an average of 100 convicts a month. The Fergusons were dogged by rumors that road contracts were granted to Ferguson's friends and political supporters, who would then contribute significantly to the Fergusons' personal coffers.
Ma Ferguson was defeated by Daniel James Moody in 1926. After losing a run for governor in 1930, she ran again in 1932, and won. Her second term was less contentious than her first, though the practice of wholesale pardons continued.
The Fergusons all but retired from politics after that. Mrs. Ferguson made another run for governor in 1940 but lost to W. Lee 'Pappy' O'Daniel.
Jim Ferguson died in 1944, and Miriam retired in Austin, where she died on June 25, 1961, of heart failure.
Ma and Pa are buried side-by-side in the State Cemetery in Austin.
