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V - Texas Governors Series LbNA #33879

Owner:Boots Tex
Plant date:Aug 6, 2007
Location:
City:Wichita Falls
County:Wichita
State:Texas
Boxes:1
Found by: Walksfar
Last found:Apr 4, 2015
Status:FFOFFFFFFFFFFFFFFa
Last edited:Aug 6, 2007
James Allred was the 33rd governor of Texas. He was born on March 29, 1899, in Bowie, Texas and was christened James Burr V Allred. James and Burr were uncles' names, but the "V" stood for nothing. Nonetheless he was known as "Vee" for most of his early life. Allred had enrolled in Rice Institute in 1917 but left school soon thereafter because of financial problems. He served in the U.S. Immigration Service for a short while before enlisting in the Navy during World War I. After the war he clerked in a law office in Wichita Falls, obtained a law degree from Cumberland University in Lebanon, Tennessee, and began law practice in Wichita Falls. Allred's public-service career began in 1923 when Gov. Pat Neff appointed him assistant district attorney in Wichita Falls to complete an unexpired term. He was elected to a full term in 1924. In 1926 he ran for attorney general of Texas as a Democrat but was defeated. In his next try for elective office, in 1930, he was elected attorney general at age 31, defeating the incumbent and becoming the youngest man to hold that office. He was reelected in 1932. He then served two terms as Texas governor, from 1935 to 1939. On leaving the governorship, he was appointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt to district judge in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas. He served in that office from 1939 to 1942, when he resigned to run against an incumbent senator, W. Lee O’Daniel, for his seat in the U.S. Senate. Allred failed to unseat O'Daniel, and Roosevelt then nominated him to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, but the Senate Judiciary Committee would not approve his nomination. In 1951 he was reappointed to the Southern District judgeship by President Harry S. Truman, and he served in that position until he died of a heart attack in Laredo on September 27, 1959, a few hours after recessing court because he felt "a little under the weather." He lived in Corpus Christi during this judicial tenure and was buried in Wichita Falls. He has been described as a "talented and fiery" lawyer. As attorney general he filed an unprecedented number of suits, including many anti-trust cases, and recovered millions of dollars for the state. As governor he embraced Roosevelt's New Deal, and during his administrations the legislature passed social security measures that included old-age assistance and teacher retirement programs. He opposed the Ku Klux Klan and repeal of prohibition.

Directions: This letterbox is located in Riverside Cemetery, 1810 5th St. (Seymour Hwy.) in Wichita Falls, Texas.

To the box: After you enter through the cemetery gate, you will drive to the second road and turn left. As you start down the road, you will see the large, three-tiered, star studded monument of Governor Allred to your left. Continue down a hill, and just as the road starts to curve to the right, you will see a small cactus/rock garden on your left with a small grove of crepe myrtles and a gravel road behind it. Pull onto the gravel road and park by the crepe myrtles. Look at the graves on the right side of your vehicle and find the small old gravestone for “W.W. White, Father”. Standing in front of that marker, take a compass reading of 220 degrees where you will see a large cedar tree, approximately 38 steps away. Go to that tree and look inside, wedged in the tree about three feet up for the letterbox.

Be sure to wedge the box back into the branches tightly for the security of the box, as this is a well maintained cemetery. Thanks to Puddle Splasher for planting this box for me.