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Robert Teague Milner (1851-1923), newspaper editor, legislator, and president of Texas A&M College, the son of Arnold and Mary Milner, was born on June 21, 1851, in Cherokee County, Alabama. During his childhood the family moved to Texas and settled seven miles east of Henderson. He attended Pine Hill School and Henderson Male and Female College. For fifteen years he taught school, but in 1881 he purchased the Henderson Times, which he edited for almost twenty-five years. Milner was elected to the House of Representatives for the Twentieth, Twenty-first, and Twenty-second legislatures, 1887-92. He was chairman of the committee on education and was the author of the law requiring the teaching of Texas history in the public schools. In 1907 he was appointed state commissioner of agriculture, insurance, statistics, and history. While he was serving in that capacity, the legislature passed the law establishing the office of commissioner of agriculture, a bill that Milner wrote at the request of Governor Thomas Mitchell Campbell. Milner became the first commissioner and organized the department of agriculture but resigned in 1908 to become president of Texas A&M. During his administration the college was divided into the schools of engineering and agriculture. He resigned in June 1913 and returned to private life at Henderson. Milner married Mary L. Hawkins in October 1883, and they had five children. He died on July 30, 1923, and was buried near Henderson. BIBLIOGRAPHY: Rosalind Langston, "The Life of Colonel R. T. Milner," Southwestern Historical Quarterly 44, 45 (April, July 1941). Dorman H. Winfrey Reprinted with permission from the Handbook of Texas Online, a joint project of the Texas State Historical Association and the General Libraries at the University of Texas at Austin. © 2003, The Texas State Historical Association.
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