John Jay Good
Dallas, Dallas County, Texas
Marker Inscription
(1827-1882) Mississippi native John Jay Good practiced law in Alabama before moving to Dallas in 1851. He married Susan Anna Floyd in 1854. Good was involved in early local and state government and was a charter member of the local Odd Fellows' Lodge in 1855. He served the Confederacy in the Civil War as a colonel of an artillery regiment. Good later became a district judge and was elected as mayor of Dallas in 1880. (1996)
Erected by Texas Historical Commission
The Story
A Mississippi native who practiced law in Alabama, John Jay Good settled in Dallas in 1851 and quickly wove himself into the town's civic fabric, from early government to a charter membership in the local Odd Fellows' lodge. When the Civil War came he served the Confederacy as colonel of an artillery regiment, and afterward returned to public life as a district judge and, in 1880, mayor of Dallas. His path from frontier lawyer to wartime officer to city leader mirrors the arc of the town itself.
Why it matters
Good's career shows how the men who built antebellum Dallas carried its institutions through secession, war, and recovery into the growing city of the Gilded Age.
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