DUANE
Duane's take
Now, I'm tellin' this one straight from the official marker out of Milam County — so here's the story as the record stands. Sometimes the biggest stories start with something as humble as a tomato. We're talkin' 1912, Milam County, Texas.
The United States Department of Agriculture came knockin' with a request, and the person who answered that knock was a woman named Mrs. Edna Westbrook Trigg — a local high school principal. They asked her to undertake a project, and she didn't just take it on.
She built something. What she built were the first Girl's Tomato Clubs in Texas. Eleven of them, organized throughout Milam County.
The members ranged in age from ten to eighteen — young women in rural areas who were about to learn something that would stick with them a good long while. The mission was straightforward but not simple: acquaint these young women with tomato production and canning techniques. Each member was to produce a tomato crop on one-tenth of an acre of land, and then — this is the part that mattered just as much — she was taught proper canning procedures.
You grow it, you preserve it, you make something of it. Now, you might wonder where this idea came from. A similar program for boys, the Corn Clubs, had already been instituted in Jack County four years earlier.
So the framework was there. Mrs. Trigg just brought it to Milam County's daughters, and those daughters ran with it.
And then came the exhibits. The girls showed their products at Milano, at Rockdale, at the 1913 State Fair in Dallas, and at the Waco Cotton Palace. And here's where the story gets a little extraordinary — those exhibits were so successful that several of the girls started college education funds with the money they raised selling their goods.
Read that again slow. These young women, working one-tenth of an acre apiece, grew and canned their way toward a college education. That is not a small thing.
As the state's first rural girl's organization of its kind, the Tomato Clubs turned out to be forerunners of something much larger. Programs that followed, including 4-H, were initiated under the supervision of the Texas Agricultural Extension Service. Over time, 4-H has expanded its scope — but it has maintained the principal objectives of its predecessors.
So the next time you pass through Milam County, think on Mrs. Edna Westbrook Trigg, eleven clubs, and a whole lot of young women who took one-tenth of an acre and turned it into a future. That's not just gardening.
That's the ground floor of something that's still growing.
What the marker says
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.