Ruth Scroggins

Citations

1. 31195.
2. [S50] http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/TT/….
   
3. [S50] http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/TT/…
   TAYLOR, THOMAS JEFFERSON II (1874-1960). Thomas Jefferson Taylor II,
   merchant, philanthropist, and father of Lady Bird Johnson, was born on August 29,
   1874, in Autauga County, Alabama, the son of Thomas Jefferson and Emma Louisa
   (Bates) Taylor. He moved to Texas in the mid-1890s and opened a store in Karnack,
   Harrison County. In 1900 he married Minnie Lee Patillo of Alabama; they had two sons
   and a daughter, Claudia Alta, who married Lyndon Baines Johnson.qv Sometime before
   1912 Taylor purchased the Andrews Plantation house, an imposing two-story brick
   residence now known as the Lady Bird Johnson Home. Taylor amassed considerable
   wealth by using the profits from his store and other business ventures to advance money
   to needy farmers at ten percent and by investing heavily in real estate. Very much a
   typical successful rural entrepreneur of his times, he was called "Cap'n Taylor" by his
   business associates and "Mister Boss" by black sharecroppers; he was probably the
   largest landowner in Harrison County by the 1930s. In 1934 Taylor donated to the state
   about two-thirds of the land (some 385 acres) composing Caddo Lake State Park.qv He
   was one of his son-in-law's principal financial backers in his first race for Congress in
   1937. At one time Taylor owned the land on which the Longhorn Ordnance Works (later
   the Longhorn Army Ammunition Plantqv) was constructed during World War II.qv
   Minnie died in 1918, and Taylor's second marriage ended in divorce. He married his third
   wife, Ruth Scroggins, in Marshall in 1937. Taylor was a member of the Karnack
   Methodist Church for some sixty years. He died on October 22, 1960, after a long illness
   and was buried at Algoma Cemetery, Marshall.
   
   BIBLIOGRAPHY: Austin American, October 23, 1960. Robert A. Caro, The Years of
   Lyndon Johnson: The Path to Power (New York: Knopf, 1982). Alfred Steinberg, Sam
   Johnson's Boy (New York: Macmillan, 1968). Antonio J. Taylor, Oral History Interview,
   Transcript, Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Austin. Vertical File, Lyndon Baines
   Johnson Library, Austin.
   
   Mark Odintz
   
   Recommended citation:
   "TAYLOR, THOMAS JEFFERSON II." The Handbook of Texas Online.
   <http://www.tsha.utexas.edu/handbook/online/articles/view/TT/…> [Accessed Thu Mar 14 16:49:53 US/Central 2002 ].