Birthsite of Beauford H. Jester
Corsicana, Navarro County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1893-1949)Governor of Texas (1947-1949)Chief executive when significant Gilmer-Aikin Law was passed, raising standards of public education in Texas, his administration also made strides toward prison reform, water control, improved public roads.Jester was born at family home in Corsicana, where he attended public school. He graduated from University of Texas, 1916; left Harvard Law School to serve as captain in 90th division during World War I. Graduated in law from University of Texas, 1920, and became avid baseball player. For many years, Jester practiced law and had oil interests in Corsicana.In 1946 he was elected governor as a Jeffersonian Conservative. At the inauguration, World War I buddies carried him on their shoulders into the Governor's Mansion, where he had slept as a boy when his father, George T. Jester, was lieutenant governor.After the disastrous Texas City explosions killed over 400 persons in 1947, Jester personally assisted rescue operations. He was re-elected in 1948. When the legislature adjourned in 1949 after the longest regular session in Texas history, he left to take a vacation in Galveston, but died en route of natural causes. He was the only Texas governor to die in office.His wife was Mabel Buchanan; they had 3 children. (1968)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Born at his family's Corsicana home in 1893, Beauford Jester grew up sleeping in the Governor's Mansion during his father's tenure as lieutenant governor—then returned to it as governor himself in 1947. A University of Texas lawyer and World War I captain, he championed the landmark Gilmer-Aikin laws that modernized Texas public schools and personally aided rescuers after the deadly 1947 Texas City disaster. Re-elected in 1948, he died in office the following year, the only Texas governor to do so.
Why it matters
Jester's administration reshaped mid-century Texas public education and disaster response, and his death in office made him a singular figure in the state's political history.
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Related people
- · Beauford H. Jester
- · George T. Jester
- · Mabel Buchanan
Related events
- · World War I
- · Texas City disaster
- · Gilmer-Aikin laws
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
George Taylor Jester
Corsicana, TX
George Taylor Jester came to Corsicana from Illinois as a boy, working for fifty cents a day on the county's first brick building before making his name in dry goods, cotton, and banking. He joined the Confederate army in the war's final year, then climbed through the Texas legislature to serve as lieutenant governor from 1894 to 1898. A founder of Southern Methodist University, he also fathered a future Texas governor, Beauford Jester.
St. John's Episcopal Church
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St. John's grew from Episcopal missionary work that reached the Corsicana area in the 1850s, organizing as a mission in 1871 under the Rev. Virginius Gee. Three years later the congregation built its first church on land donated by the Simkins family, and the parish was formally established by 1876. In the 1940s it ran an Episcopal school said to be the first in the Dallas Diocese.
Corsicana Public Library
Corsicana, TX
Corsicana's women's clubs opened the city's first public library in 1901, and their efforts soon won a Carnegie grant that built a permanent home in 1906, complete with an auditorium for community gatherings. Mattie Houston served as head librarian for more than three decades. By 1967 the collection had outgrown its walls and moved to a new building.
First Methodist Church
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Founded in 1851 on the Texas frontier, this Methodist congregation built its sanctuary in 1871, and the following year hosted the State Democratic Convention that laid plans to end Reconstruction rule in Texas. The church also organized what it claims as the first missionary society west of the Mississippi in 1880, and ordained H. A. Boaz, who rose to lead Polytechnic College and SMU before becoming a bishop. Its story weaves together frontier religion, Reconstruction-era politics, and the growth of Methodist education.