John C. McCoy

McCoy was born in Clark County, Indiana, on September 28, 1819, and received his law diploma in Louisville in 1842, according to the Dallas County Pioneer Association. He sailed for New Orleans in December 1844 and landed at Galveston on New Year's Day 1845. In 1846 he became the county's first district clerk, and in 1856 he was elected district attorney. His wife, Cora, and their child died in 1853. He later became the association's first president and a prominent Freemason.

What the plaque says

John C. McCoy (1819 - 1887) Practiced law in Kentucky before coming to Texas in 1845. Was agent for Peters' Colony located in Dallas and adjacent counties. First attorney to practice law here. He founded bar association; fought in the Mexican War; was outstanding civic leader. Recorded - 1968

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• African American Museum, Dallas — 1.2 mi
  Founded in 1974 at Bishop College, a free Fair Park museum holding the Sepia photograph archive, African art and A. Maceo Smith's papers, and the story of the Hall of Negro Life.
• Fair Park — 1.3 mi
  The State Fair of Texas grounds since 1886, where the 1936 Texas Centennial Exposition left one of the country's greatest concentrations of Art Deco exposition buildings.
• Dallas Heritage Village at Old City Park — 1.9 mi
  Dallas's first city park, laid out around Browder's Spring in 1876, now a museum of historic buildings moved here from across North Texas, among them Millermore, a cotton planter's mansion.
• Dallas Museum of Art — 3.0 mi
  A city art museum that began as the Dallas Art Association in 1903, grew up in Fair Park, and has stood in the Arts District since 1984 under a forty-foot barrel vault.

More markers nearby

• General Richard M. Gano (C.S.A.) — steps away
• Lincoln High School — 0.7 mi
• South Boulevard-Park Row Historic District — 0.9 mi
• WRR Radio — 1.0 mi