Milam County, TX Sheriff Drew Sims Rogers by Greg Kouba

Drew Sims Rogers

#31 - Sheriff Drew Sims Rogers was elected November 7, 1922 and served until January 1,

1925.

Rogers was born in Tupelo, Mississippi on October 24, 1887.

Rogers and his parents, Richard Taylor Rodgers and Margaret Hill Rodgers and family

moved to Milam County between 1892—1900. The family lived in the Buckholts and Bryant

Station communities.

Drew Rogers married Mamie Mary Mayes of Buckholts. They had eight children, two of which

died in infancy.

Drew S. Rogers had been a barber in the old Milam Motel for many years and was a

Constable for Pct. 6 at Buckholts.

Prior to his term as Sheriff, the Ku Klux Klan organization was already prevalent in

Milam County and bootlegging was a major problem. It was rumored he held ties with the

KKK.

He ran for the office of Sheriff against incumbent L. L. Blaylock. Rogers defeated

Blaylock in the election, but during the next election, Blaylock came back and defeated

him.

Due to a large family, Sheriff Rogers never lived in the 1895 jail, but in a two story

house about two blocks away.

Only a couple of times did he stay in the jail. Once, to ensure that an angry mob didn’t

break a black man from the jail who was accused of insulting a white woman. He told the

mob from the rooftop of the jail, that they elected “him” to enforce the law and that no

one better try to enter his jail. Sheriff Rogers sat on the roof of the jail with three

sticks of dynamite, warning the mob of citizens, that he would ignite them and throw a

stick into the middle of the mob if they tried to enter the jail for the prisoner.

In keeping with his election platform, Sheriff Rogers aggressively attacked the

bootleggers in the county making raid after raid.

In his first official act as Sheriff, on January 11, 1923, the sheriff, with the

assistance of Constable Charles Sens, raided a dance near Buckholts and arrested three

people. Two for transporting liquor and another man for carrying a pistol. The July 5,

1923 edition of the Cameron Herald has a story in which the headline reads: “SHERIFF

ROGERS MAKING AVERAGE 1 CASE A DAY”.

According to his son Drew Jr., Sheriff Rogers was offered $10,000 to look the other way

when it came to arresting certain “upper class bootleggers”, which he declined to do and

it was believed that this eventually led to his defeat during the next election.

Drew S. Rogers stood for what he believed in, and for what was “right”, according to his

son, and he was a man of good principles.

Information provided from his WWI registration card shows him to be “stout, brown eyes

and black hair”.

After his term in the sheriff’s office, he and his family moved to Houston. County clerk

records show his occupation then as a life insurance agent.

Drew S. Rogers died in September 1964 and is buried in Houston.

Index

Sheriffs of Milam County, TX

Researched and written by

Greg Kouba

Drew Sims Rogers