The banner headline was followed by this brief obituary:
John W. Slaughter, 91, the builder of some of Dallas’ principal buildings and the father of M. A. Slaughter, 132 S. Beckham, died Friday in a Dallas hospital.
Funeral services will be held at 2 p.m. Monday in the Oak Lawn Methodist Church in Dallas – one of the many Dallas structures he erected.
Mr. Slaughter was a Dallas County commissioner from 1920 until 1930. He had lived in Dallas since 1897. Part of his construction work included Highways 75, 76 and 67 out of Dallas.
Other survivors include five other sons.
-Tyler Courier-Times, Tyler, Texas, November 6, 1949
Mr. Slaughter was president of the J. W. Slaughter Construction Company for a number of years and was a well known businessman in Dallas County. He was born in Chambers County, Alabama on a plantation near Lafayette. In the 1870 Federal census his family was residing in Ashland, Alabama where his father was serving as a school teacher. John came to Texas at around the age of 19 or 20 in 1877, first settling in North Texas. In the 1880 census, he and another brother were working on the farm of their sister and a brother-in-law in Cooke County. One of his early jobs outside the family was that of a carpenter.
He married the former Mary Ann Harris in 1884. The first of their eight sons was born in 1886. They also had two daughters, neither of whom survived beyond two years of age. By 1900, they had settled in Dallas and John was working as a contractor.
The J. W. Slaughter Construction Co. was incorporated in 1902 with initial capital stock of $10,000. Through the company he founded, he was the contractor on many commercial, public and residential projects, including a building known as the Slaughter Office Building (apparently not the same as another structure that later became known as the Slaughter Building, owned by the unrelated C. C. Slaughter family), Magnolia Petroleum Company’s warehouse complex in South Dallas, numerous office, retail, warehouse, and hotel buildings as well as the residential neighborhoods of Lakemont and Lakeshore. He was a life-long Methodist and was a member of First Methodist Church. In 1911, the company was the contractor for a building for Dallas Country Club following a fire to a former structure. His company is associated with the construction of many Texas Methodist churches including Stewart Methodist, Trinity Methodist, Grace Methodist, Oak Lawn Methodist and was the general contractor for the initial construction of St. Paul’s Methodist Houston (one of his first company projects). It was also associated with East Dallas Christian Church, the Downtown Y. M. C. A. building on Commerce Street and the Y. W. C. A. building.
His civic duties included serving as a Dallas County Commissioner from 1920 to 1930. During his tenure as County Commissioner, he instituted a highway improvement program which modernized 14 different thoroughfares in the city. In 1936, he was elected the first president of the Trinity River soil conservation and flood control district. He served as a director of the Y. M. C. A. and was a member of the Knights of Pythias fraternal organization.
His wife Mary Ann died in 1922 and he survived her 27 years until his death in 1949. Both are buried in the memorial park now known as Sparkman Hillcrest.
by Mike Magers
