A Memorial and Biographical History of Navarro, Henderson, Anderson, Limestone, Freestone and Leon Counties, Texas Page: 118

                                
HISTORY OF NAVARRO, HENDERSON, ANDERSON,

on the roads to Dresden, to Porter's Bluff,
to Waco, and in a few other directions.
The first bridge was a toll one on Chambers
creek, while Richland had to be satisfied
with a far less pretentious one of poles.
The best work in bridges did not begin until
about 1883, when four iron ones were
put on Chambers, Rush and Richland, and
a good system of wooden ones provided in
other parts of the county. About 1889
the attention was turned to the roads themselves,
and road machinery procured at a
total cost of about $33,000.
Navarro's scrip is good anywhere at par;
she has never issued but $42,500 in bonds,
-those for the purposes before mentioned,
including $9,000 for the wooden bridges.
This is her full bonded debt now, but she
holds her own bonds in her school fund.
Her annual receipts and expenditures reach
about $52,000, not including about $34,000
for school purposes.
Of course such a financial condition indicates
a good growth in the wealth of the
county; this is well shown in the successive
decades of valuation; in the year 1870,
before it had fairly recovered from the effects
of the war, the valuation was $1,885,765;
in 1881 it was $5,436,393, and in
1892 it scores almost double, even with the
railway shops removed, or the sum of
$9,570,341, of which $2,705,000 belongs
to Corsicana.
Among the county judges not previously
mentioned are Presley Donaldson, T. J.
Haynes, J. R. Loughridge, S. H. Kerr,
Isaac Taylor, Sam Wright, J. L. Miller,
W. R. Bright, J. L. Autry, R. C. Beale,
and J. H. Rice, a list believed to be complete.

Not many counties are called upon to
furnish the officers of lofty position in
State and nation, but among that necessarily
limited number Navarro county has
been along the number honored. First
upon the list is the great free-trader, Senator
Roger Q. Mills, who has been called
from step to step until he now graces the
national senate and holds an enviable position
in the esteem of all parts and all parties
of the nation. Another is the Hon.
C. M. Winkler, now deceased, who was
called to the bench of the Court of Appeals.
Another member of that court was
called from this county and is now serving
-the Hon. E. J. Simpkins, who has also
served as State senator. The Hon. F. M.
Martin is a fourth, who was called to the
position of both State senator and lieutenant-governor.

CLINTON McKANY WINKLER (deceased),
lawyer of Corsicana, Navarro county, and
Judge of the Court of Appeals, was born in
Burke county, North Carolina, Oct. 19,
1820. His father, David Tate Winkler,
was a North Carolina farmer who emigrated
to Robertson county, Texas, in 1844
and died in 1849.' Conrad Winkler, the
progenitor of the family in America, was
the grandfather of Judge Winkler, and
came from Germany at an early date,
settling in North Carolina, where he followed
agricultural pursuits until his death.
The mother of Judge Winkler was Lavinia
Gates Owen, a lady of many accomplishments
and possessed of much common
sense, a native of North Carolina: She
was a daughter of Harrison Owen, an educator
of great merit, celebrated in Carolina.
Their ancestors came from England and

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