Egbert Railey Cockrell: Educator, Minister, and Mayor of Fort Worth (1872–1934)

Egbert Railey Cockrell, educator, minister, and mayor of Fort Worth, son of Henry Clifton Cockrell and Sadie (Railey) Cockrell, was born in Weston, Missouri, on April 2, 1872. His uncle was famed United States senator Francis M. Cockrell of Missouri. While he was a child, Cockrell moved with his parents to St. Joseph, Missouri, and then to a ranch near Bozeman in Montana Territory. He received his early education through tutors and at pioneer schools. Around 1892 his father sent him to Drake University in Des Moines, Iowa. On May 20, 1897, Cockrell graduated with a bachelor of laws from the Iowa College of Law at Drake University. He later received a master of arts, a master of laws, and an honorary doctor of laws from the university. While at Drake University, he met his future wife, Dura Brokaw, and they married on May 25, 1897, at Des Moines. They had one son and one daughter together.

Cockrell returned to Montana to practice law in Bozeman before moving to Waco to attend Add Ran Chrisitan University, now Texas Christian University (TCU). In 1899 he graduated with a bachelor of arts and began teaching there as the professor of history and political science while his wife was the head of the art department. Cockrell also served as the dean of the university’s first, short-lived school of law. In 1903 he left Texas for New York, where he attended Columbia University and served as an associate pastor of the Fifty-sixth Street Church of the Disciples of Christ in Manhattan and later as the director of the employment department of the Young Men’s Christian Association’s Central Branch in Brooklyn. In 1906 Cockrell and his wife returned to their positions at TCU. While continuing to teach at TCU, Cockrell was a prolific public speaker and lecturer. In 1910, after a fire destroyed the Waco campus, TCU moved to Fort Worth.

In 1911 the mayor of Fort Worth commissioned Cockrell to “study the problems connected with the cities of America, England and Europe, and make a report.” In connection with this, Cockrell took a year-long leave of absence to study municipal issues in Britain and Europe, which included study at Oxford University. He was accompanied by his wife, TCU President Clinton Lockhart, and a group of students—the first detachment from TCU to study abroad. In 1915 Cockrell became the head of the second school of law at TCU, which lasted until 1920. Due to his popularity as a professor, students unsuccessfully petitioned the university to name him president of TCU after Frederick D. Kershner resigned (Edward McShane Waits succeeded as president in 1916). In 1917 Cockrell became pastor of the Rosemont Christian Church in Dallas. Around this time Cockrell became active in politics. He led a sanitary survey, tasked with evaluating the sanitary conditions of Fort Worth housing, as part of a statewide effort intended to secure a better housing law in the state. He also campaigned for local political figures.

Cockrell ran for Fort Worth mayor in the election of 1921. Opposing incumbent mayor William D. Davis and L. T. Rogers in the Democratic primary, Cockrell ran on a progressive platform. He advocated free garbage disposal, the creation of a sewage disposal plant, the maintenance of “an efficient and adequately paid police department,” lower taxes, the re-establishment of a health board, the creation of a single library system, the building of additional streetcar lines, the beautification and improvements of streets, and the annexation of the suburbs of Fort Worth. Cockrell decisively defeated Mayor Davis by more than 4,000 votes. In its first term, Cockrell’s administration formed a new city health board to enforce sanitary regulations, instituted free garbage disposal, expanded the city’s sewage system, and undertook sanitation efforts at Lake Worth, all of which reflected Cockrell’s desire to make Fort Worth “the cleanest city in the state.” The administration also oversaw extensive street improvements, nearly doubled the city’s number of street lights, expanded streetcar services, acquired Cobb Park, and sought to attract a Mexican consulate to Fort Worth.

During his first term, Cockrell was also involved in several state-level initiatives. In 1922 he became a founding member of the Texas Conservation Association, which sought to advance a comprehensive system of flood control and groundwater conservation, and was elected president of the League of Texas Municipalities (now the Texas Municipal League). The following year he helped organize a campaign to establish a state college in West Texas. The result of these efforts was the creation of Texas Technological College (now Texas Tech University) in Lubbock.

On July 22, 1922, the city held a special election to adopt five amendments to the city charter: the annexation of the TCU Hill, Arlington Heights, Diamond Hill, Washington Heights, Rosen Heights, Van Zandt, Riverside, South Fort Worth, Mistletoe Heights, Polytechnic Heights, and Niles City into Fort Worth; the removal of the limit on the amount of school bonds that the city could issue; the creation of a public recreation board, the placing of Fort Worth libraries under the control of the Fort Worth Public Library Association; and the raising of the maximum rate of school taxes. All amendments passed by large margins, with the annexations that doubled the size of Fort Worth passing by a vote of seven-to-one. On December 30, 1922, Cockrell’s administration held a $2,750,000 bond election to fund the extension of city fire, water, street, and light services into the newly-annexed suburbs. The four bond packages narrowly passed.

The debt assumed to extend municipal services become a major source of criticism of Cockrell. While his critics labeled him “the greatest four-flusher in Texas” and attempted to recall him, Cockrell was renominated as the Democratic party’s candidate for mayor on November 7, 1922. Running against ex-mayor Davis and D. M. Alexander in a contentious election, Cockrell vigorously defended his record of municipal improvements, the annexation of the suburbs, and the necessity of the bond measures for the betterment of Fort Worth. In 1923 Cockrell beat both of his opponents in a landslide. He had actively campaigned for Black votes but avoided open criticism of the Ku Klux Klan, which backed his candidacy. Following his reelection, he unsuccessfully sought to fulfill a campaign promise to build a municipal park for Black residents in the southeastern part of Fort Worth, near Tyler’s Lake. The effort was defeated due to the opposition of White residents.

In his second term as mayor, Cockrell oversaw further improvements to the city’s streets and waterworks, including the construction of a new municipal sewage disposal plant, and opened the first municipal golf course in Fort Worth. Located near TCU, the golf course was later called Worth Hills. Cockrell also sought to secure an airmail stop for Fort Worth at Barron Field near Everman. The city conducted repairs at the airfield, which became part of the Model Airways system in 1924. At the start of his second term, Cockrell outlined four proposed projects for the following two years: the building of a municipal auditorium, a trade and shipping outlet to the Northwest, a new union station, and the control and conservation of the flood waters of the Clear Fork of the Trinity River. Cockrell also proposed raising the dam at Lake Worth to increase the capacity of the lake. Progress on these proposed projects was stymied by municipal financial troubles. In 1924 the city issued $1.25 million in bonds to cover a large overdraft in Fort Worth’s general fund and adopted a new budget system to help reign in departmental spending. Cockrell advocated amending the city charter to centralize control over the largely independent city departments under the office of the mayor. Before Fort Worth adopted a new charter to effect a council-manager form of government, Mayor Cockrell accepted the position of president of William Woods College, a junior college for women, in Fulton, Missouri. On October 8, 1924, he resigned his position as mayor and was succeeded by Willard P. Burton. In 1925 Cockrell sold his former residence near the TCU campus to the University Christian Church. His home was used as a girls’ dormitory for two sessions before the church was built on the site in 1929.

During his ten-year tenure as collegiate president, Cockrell helped to advance William Woods as an educational institution and gained a reputation as one of the “foremost educators of the state.” In August 1934 Cockrell fell ill with heart disease and left for his summer home near Winslow, Arkansas, to recuperate. On September 10 he went into City Hospital in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Circulatory issues necessitated the amputation of his left leg. On September 13, 1934, Cockrell, at the age of sixty-two, died of chronic myocarditis and was buried at Greenwood Cemetery in Fort Worth. Cockrell Avenue near TCU’s campus is named after the former mayor.

Throughout his life, Cockrell was involved with multiple professional and fraternal organizations. He was a charter member of the Kiwanis Club of Fort Worth and president of the Kiwanis Club of Fulton. He was also a founding member and the first president of Texas Christian University’s Ex-Students and Alumni Association and was a member of the Texas Bar Association, the Texas State Teachers Association, the Lambda Chi fraternity, the Masons, the Shriners, and the Rod and Gun Club. In 1923 Cockrell was elected president of the Southwestern Political Science Association. He served in several roles in the Christian Church throughout his lifetime, including as vice president of the district that included Fort Worth, as program chair of the 1928 Missouri State Convention of the Christian Church, and as a commissioner of the Missouri Education Commission of the Christian Church.