Harry W. Meredith
Mineola, Wood County, Texas
Marker Inscription
Kentucky native Harry Meredith (1871-1962) attended business college in Illinois and was owner-operator of a brick plant in his hometown of Leitchfield before moving to Mineola, Texas, with his wife, Mary Henri Hunter, by 1907. Meredith entered the banking business in 1908, when he became associated with Mineola State Bank. He served as its president until the financial institution merged with First National Bank in 1932, at which time he became a director and served as chairman of the board for the remainder of his life. During the early 1920s, the Merediths built a home at this site and Harry served as the city's mayor (1920-1922). After his first wife's death in 1932, Meredith married Daisy Warren Nelson (d. 1954) in 1943. Harry Meredith's legacy of philanthropy began in the 1940s, when he gave money to build two dormitories at the Methodist Children's Home in Waco. After his third wife, Jennie Burge Hurdle, died in 1958, Harry organized the Meredith Foundation to fund a variety of civic projects in Mineola for the use and enjoyment of its citizens. Over the years, the Meredith Foundation has helped to build and operate the public library and the civic center. Funds have also been used for the benefit of Mineola's youth, the arts and churches, among other charitable causes. Harry Meredith died in 1962 and is buried in the city cemetery. His significant impact on the city's life, however, continues through the work of the foundation. (2001)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
Harry Meredith arrived in Mineola around 1907 from Kentucky by way of a Kentucky brick plant, and spent the next half-century shaping the town from behind a banker's desk, serving as bank president, board chairman, and briefly as mayor. Late in life he turned his fortune toward the public good, and the Meredith Foundation he organized still funds the town's library, civic center, and youth and church programs. His home once stood on this site, a fixture of the community he reshaped.
Why it matters
Meredith's story captures how small-town bankers and their charitable foundations quietly built the civic infrastructure — libraries, halls, and schools — of countless American towns.
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Related people
- · Harry W. Meredith
- · Mary Henri Hunter
Themes & tags
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