Birthplace of Governor Dan Moody

The plaque says Moody prosecuted Ku Klux Klansmen but names no case. It began on Easter Sunday, April 1, 1923, when Klansmen seized Robert W. Burleson, a traveling salesman boarding with a widow, Fannie Campbell, in Taylor. They beat and whipped him, poured creosote on him and padlocked him to a tree outside city hall. Moody, the district attorney, tried the men from May 1923. Texas Time Travel counts five convictions, four for assault and one for perjury, and calls them the first Klan convictions in the United States. The Handbook says the cases brought him statewide recognition.

What the plaque says

Birthplace of Governor Dan Moody A crusader for integrity in public office. Born in Taylor, Williamson County; son of Daniel and Nancy Elizabeth Robertson Moody. At 16 entered University of Texas, where he completed law school. After World War I service, won election to the office of county attorney, then an appointment by Governor Pat Neff to District Attorney, Travis and Williamson counties. Won statewide notice for prosecutions of Ku Klux Klansmen in notorious flogging cases, and was urged by friends to run for Attorney General of Texas. He won this office, and served 1925-1927 in an era of alleged corruption. Moving to halt kickbacks on highway contracts, he recovered for Texas hundreds of thousands of dollars. In 1926 ran for governor on his record as Attorney General, and was elected. Inaugurated when he was 33, he was youngest man ever to take oath for that office. During his terms, 1927-1931, Texans' faith in their state government was restored. Great reforms were made in the State Highway Department and state penitentiary system. After retirement from the governor's office, he practiced law, and was appointed by the President of the United States to prosecute tax evader. He married Mildred Paxton; they had two children.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Williamson County Courthouse — 16 mi
  The fifth Williamson County courthouse, a Beaux Arts building by C. H. Page, rises over a Georgetown square of more than 50 Victorian-era buildings.
• Inner Space Cavern — 17 mi
  A Georgetown cave found in 1963 when highway engineers drilled test holes, holding Pleistocene fossils and 72-degree rooms that visitors reach by an artificial tunnel.
• The Round Rock — 17 mi
  A table-shaped stone in Brushy Creek gave Round Rock its name in 1854; the Chisholm Trail crossed the creek near it, and Old Town stayed behind when the railroad pulled the town east.
• LBJ Presidential Library — 28 mi
  A ten-story travertine archive on the University of Texas campus holding 45 million pages from a presidency of civil rights laws, the War on Poverty and Vietnam.

More markers nearby

• First Presbyterian Church of Taylor — steps away
• City of Taylor — 0.3 mi
• Tex Avery — 0.3 mi
• Bill Pickett — 0.3 mi