John G. Willacy ca. 1859-1943
John G. Willacy, farmer and legislator, was born in Louisville, Kentucky, about 1859. He came to Texas in 1892 and settled in the Corpus Christi area as a truck farmer. From 1899 to 1914 he was a member of the Texas legislature, where he served in the House of the Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh legislatures and in the Senate of the Thirtieth through the Thirty-third. He was chairman of committees on finance and internal improvements and served on committees on judicial districts and stock raising. He was perhaps best known as the author of the bill providing for county local option. In 1911 he introduced a bill to form a new county out of parts of Cameron and Hidalgo counties, and the resulting new county was named in his honor. Willacy moved from Corpus Christi to San Antonio in 1912. In the early 1920s he was state tax commissioner under Governor Pat M. Neff. Willacy died in San Antonio on September 19, 1943, and was buried in San José Cemetery. He was survived by his widow, Cordelia, and two daughters.Bibliography: San Antonio Express, September 20, 1943.
Claudia Hazlewood.
Source: The Texas State Historical Association, Handbook of Texas Online.