Judge Harry N. Graves

The plaque credits Graves with the 1930 Highway Patrol bill. The Handbook of Texas adds that he chaired the House Appropriations Committee and the Graves Committee, which sponsored the Griffenhagen Survey, a study of how the state ran its administration. The Administrative Code and Higher Education Reorganization bills that grew out of it, both sponsored by Graves, died in the Senate. The Handbook also says he worked at the Georgetown Democrat and then, to pay for Southwestern, the Williamson County Sun, read law at night and was admitted to the bar in 1896 at nineteen.

What the plaque says

Judge Harry N. Graves Born April 4, 1877 in La Vernia (Wilson County), Harry Graves attended Southwestern University in Georgetown and later served three terms as city attorney. As Williamson County attorney, he aided the prosecution in a landmark trial against the Ku Klux Klan, 1923-24 (he lived at this site at the time). District attorney and future governor Dan Moody led the team. In 1929, voters elected Graves to the Texas house of Representatives, where in 1930 he wrote the bill establishing the Texas Highway Patrol. In 1937, he became a judge on the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. Graves died in 1957 and was buried in the State Cemetery, Austin, leaving a legacy of civil rights and public safety for Texas. (2006)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Williamson County Courthouse — 0.8 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 — 2.0 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 — 8.3 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.
• Mount Bonnell — 22 mi
  Austin's old lookout over the Colorado, named by an 1838 traveler, picnicked on by George and Libbie Custer, and reached by a 1939 flight of about 100 limestone steps.

More markers nearby

• Southwestern University — 0.2 mi
• Evangelical Free Church — 0.3 mi
• Xi Chapter, Kappa Alpha Order — 0.3 mi
• Iota Chapter, Kappa Sigma Fraternity — 0.3 mi