Dan Moody - Georgetown, TX
Posted by: 
WalksfarTX
N 30° 38.211 W 097° 40.634
14R E 626760 N 3390102
Governor of Texas (1927–1931)
Waymark Code: WMVEHT
Location: Texas, United States
Date Posted: 04/08/2017
Views: 2
Georgetown Website
Dan Moody and his Williamson County legal team successfully prosecuted members of the Ku Klux Klan in the infamous Burleson flogging case. The trial took place in the early 1920s in the 26th District Courtroom of the Williamson County courthouse in Georgetown. This marked the first prosecution of the KKK that resulted in jail time. The ruling ultimately weakened the Klan, leading to the decline and downfall of the group on a national level.
Moody’s victory did not go unnoticed, leading him to a successful bid for Attorney General of Texas in 1925. In an era of Ferguson dominated politics and corruption, Moody at the age of thirty-three was elected Governor of Texas—the youngest ever elected to that office. Moody’s administration focused on reform and fighting the culture of corruption previously established by the Ferguson administration. Moody restored confidence in the Texas government by recovering huge sums of public money in his crusade to expose corruption.
Wikipedia
Daniel James Moody, Jr. was born on June 1, 1893, in Taylor, Texas. He was the son of Taylor's mayor-justice of the peace-school board chairman Daniel James Moody Sr. who was one of the town's first settlers in 1876. His mother Nannie Elizabeth Robertson was a local school teacher when Moody Sr. married her in 1890.
Moody Jr. was an alumnus of the University of Texas Law School, and became a member of the State Bar of Texas at the age of 21, in 1914, and began practicing with Harris Melasky in Taylor. During World War I, Moody served in both the Texas National Guard as first a 2nd Lieutenant and then Captain, and also the United States Army as a 2nd Lieutenant.
In 1927, Moody defeated Ma Ferguson in a runoff election to become the youngest governor of Texas. A conservative Democrat, he served two terms as governor before leaving public office. He supported a reform program of state prisons, roads and auditing system. In the 1930s he became a staunch critic of President Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal.
He resumed private law practice in Austin, Texas after his last term as governor. Dan Moody died in 1966 and was buried at the Texas State Cemetery.