TexasEscapes.comTexas Escapes Online Magazine: Travel and History
Columns: History, Humor, Topical and Opinion
Over 1800 Texas Towns & Ghost Towns
NEW : : TEXAS TOWNS : : GHOST TOWNS : : TEXAS HOTELS : : FEATURES : : COLUMNS : : ARCHITECTURE : : IMAGES : : SITE MAP : : SEARCH SITE
HOME
SEARCH SITE
ARCHIVES
RESERVATIONS
Texas Hotels
Hotels
Cars
Air
Cruises
Texas Escapes
Online Magazine
 
 Texas : Features : Columns : "Letters from Central Texas"

Ned Green

by Clay Coppedge
Clay Coppedge columns & bio
Ned Green was one of the first and most colorful of Texas’ 20th Century millionaires. Though he wasn’t born in Texas, and his wealth was an accident of birth as much as anything else, Texas has always been quick to claim E.H.R. “Ned” Green as its own. Green, for his part, usually managed to keep a leg in Texas, even when he was away.

Green was the son of Hetty Green, the richest woman in the world known not so affectionately in her day as the “Witch of Wall Street.” Hetty was known for shuttling back and forth between Brooklyn and Hoboken to avoid establishing a residence and paying taxes even as she cleared millions on the stock market. Ned Green fit the image of the Texas millionaire, measuring 6-foot-4, but he was missing one leg, thanks to his mother’s frugality. When he injured the leg as a boy, his mother hauled him from one doctor to the next, looking for the best deal, until it was too late to save her son’s leg.

Green came to Texas when he was 25 to take over the Texas Midland Railway, which his mother owned. The railroad was faring poorly but Ned Green promised to turn the “two streaks of rust” into “one of the best railroads in the Southwest.” He deposited $500,000 in a Terrell Bank, more than doubling the bank’s resources, and bought uniforms for the local baseball team and started a brass band.

In the meantime, Green commenced to enjoy himself with lavish parties and an interest in the opposite sex that attracted scornful local attention in his adopted hometown of Terrell. But even his detractors had to admit that Green was doing some good things for the local community. While vastly improving the status of the Texas Midland Railway, which boasted the state’s first electrically lighted coach, Green also invested in experimental crops and demonstration farms to help local farmers. He was an early supporter of research aimed at eliminating the boll weevil and owned the largest stamp collection in the world.

As much as anything, Green is remembered for bringing the first automobile to Texas and for being involved in what might have been the state’s first automobile accident. The car was a two-cylinder St. Louis Gas Car surrey, designed by George Norris.

The accident occurred when Green and Norris were driving the car from Terrell to Dallas in October of 1899 but were run off the road by a farm wagon. Green and Dorris repaired the car and chugged on into Dallas, down Elm Street toward the courthouse while hundreds of onlookers lined the streets to get a glimpse of this so-called horseless carriage.

Lawsuits were subsequently filed against Green and his contraption, claiming that the automobile caused horses to run away, buggies to wreck and riders to get thrown. As late as 1910, a Dallas newspaper noted that the car, nicknamed “Old Hurricane,” was still being used as a pace car at the Texas State Fair.
**

Some of the credit for the first car in Texas goes to the Montgomery Ward & Co., which produced an electric car that ran on 28 storage batteries tucked away under the seats. Tom Hammond, a ticket agent for the MKT Railroad, along with a Dallas Daily Times Herald reporter were treated to a ride in the car when it arrived via the railroad in Dallas in 1897, two years before Green’s car.

Most historians still give the nod to Ned Green when it comes to credit for having the first car in Texas. Montgomery Ward only built two of the electric cars but they were used solely for promotion purposes and were never offered for sale.

Hammond joked that he was going to buy a few of the cars to use instead of passenger trains.

Hetty Green did not allow her son to marry while she was alive but he wed Mabel Harlow after Hetty died in 1916 at the age of 81 with a fortune estimated at $67 million.

Ned Green eventually moved from Terrell to Dallas, mostly to get away from the wagging tongues and judgements he faced in Terrell. He built a lavish Dallas townhouse for him and Mabel, with whom he lived before his mother died.

Green also became a leader of the Texas Republican Party and worked closely with “Gooseneck Bill” McDonald, a black politician and one of the most influential people in the early days of the party in Texas.

Even as he moved away from the state to conduct business, Ned Green maintained his Texas ties and he right to vote here by leaving a suit of clothes and one of his wooden legs in Terrell. By so doing, he never really left Texas.

© Clay Coppedge
"Letters from Central Texas"
December 24, 2009 Column

Related Topics: Texas History | People |
Texas | Online Magazine | Texas Towns | Columns |
 
HOME | TEXAS ESCAPES ONLINE MAGAZINE | TEXAS HOTELS
TEXAS TOWN LIST | TEXAS GHOST TOWNS | TEXAS COUNTIES

Texas Hill Country | East Texas | Central Texas North | Central Texas South | West Texas | Texas Panhandle | South Texas | Texas Gulf Coast
TRIPS | STATES PARKS | RIVERS | LAKES | DRIVES | MAPS

TEXAS FEATURES
Ghosts | People | Historic Trees | Cemeteries | Small Town Sagas | WWII | History | Black History | Rooms with a Past | Music | Animals | Books
COLUMNS : History, Humor, Topical and Opinion

TEXAS ARCHITECTURE | IMAGES
Courthouses | Jails | Churches | Gas Stations | Schoolhouses | Bridges | Theaters | Monuments/Statues | Depots | Water Towers | Post Offices | Grain Elevators | Lodges | Museums | Stores | Banks | Gargoyles | Cornerstones | Pitted Dates | Drive-by Architecture | Old Neon | Murals | Signs | Ghost Signs | Then and Now
Vintage Photos

TRAVEL RESERVATIONS | HOTELS | USA | MEXICO

Privacy Statement | Disclaimer | Recommend Us | Contributors | Staff | Contact TE
Website Content Copyright ©1998-2008. Texas Escapes - Blueprints For Travel, LLC. All Rights Reserved
This page last modified: December 24, 2009