Milas Roberson "Burney" Parker

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'll do my best to do it justice. The name on this Washington County marker is Milas Roberson Parker, though most folks knew him as Burney. And right away, that name carries some weight, because Burney Parker was the grandson of a pioneer sheriff of Nueces County.

That's the kind of bloodline that tends to point a man in a certain direction. Parker grew up in Lee and Washington counties, two patches of Texas that shaped him well. Before anyone handed him a badge or a title, he put in his time as Washington County Road Superintendent, and he didn't just pass through that job.

He held it for fourteen years. Fourteen years of Texas roads, Texas heat, Texas dirt. Then in 1908, the voters of Washington County elected him county treasurer.

A man earns that kind of trust. He held the treasurer's office until 1914, when he made a decision that tells you something about his character. He resigned it.

He walked away from a sure thing to run for sheriff. And he won. Now think about what that meant.

The years Parker wore that sheriff's star were not quiet ones. He served through World War I, and then came Prohibition, two of the more complicated stretches any lawman could draw. The marker doesn't spell out every hard night, and it doesn't have to.

That period speaks for itself. By 1926, Parker and his family had moved on to Houston. He died there in 1932.

The grandson of a pioneer sheriff, fourteen years on the roads, years in the treasurer's chair, and then the badge through the hardest of times. Burney Parker left a long track across Washington County.

What the marker says

A native Texan and the grandson of a pioneer Nueces County sheriff, Milas Roberson "Burney" Parker grew up in Lee and Washington counties. He served as Washington County Road Superintendent for fourteen years before he was elected county treasurer in 1908. He resigned that office in 1914 to run for sheriff, a position he held during the difficult period of World War I and Prohibition. In 1926 Parker and his family moved to Houston, where he died in 1932.