John William Crowdus: Dallas Mayor and Physician (1828–1895)
By: John H. Slate
Published: October 17, 2024
John William Crowdus, Dallas mayor, physician, and druggist, was born on July 6, 1828, in Franklin, Kentucky, to Mark Crowdus and Frances Bush (Eubank) Crowdus. He attended the medical department at Saint Louis University. Between 1850 and 1861 Crowdus practiced medicine in Robertson County, Tennessee, and Neosho, Missouri. During the Civil War he served as a surgeon in the Missouri State Guard (in the Fifth Cavalry Regiment of the Eighth Division) and in the Confederate Army (in the Third Missouri Infantry Regiment and the First Regiment, Choctaw and Chickasaw Mounted Rifles). Around 1866 Crowdus moved his family to Dallas, where he practiced medicine and later founded a pharmaceutical company, the J.W. Crowdus Drug Company.
Crowdus was active in Dallas politics and civic endeavors. In 1871 he was a member of a citizens’ committee that selected the site for the depot of the Houston and Texas Central Railroad, the first railway to come to Dallas. Crowdus served as president of Sarah Cockrell’s Dallas Bridge Company, which constructed the Commerce Street toll bridge over the Trinity River in 1872, and was president of the Dallas and Wichita Railway Company. He served as Dallas alderman for Ward 1 for three terms (1875–78) and two terms as mayor (1881–83). He was a Democrat and a member of the First Methodist Church of Dallas.
Crowdus was married twice. About 1849 he married Fannie Ball Hammond, with whom he had eight children. Following her death, he married Margaret Adeline Lindsey Bickham in 1885. He died of injuries following a fall on September 11, 1895, and was interred at Pioneer Cemetery in Dallas. Crowdus Street in East Dallas is named in his honor.
Bibliography:
Dallas Morning News, September 12, 1895. Fort Worth Gazette, September 12, 1895. Western Druggist 15 (August 1893).
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The following, adapted from the Chicago Manual of Style, 15th edition, is the preferred citation for this entry.
John H. Slate, “Crowdus, John William,” Handbook of Texas Online, accessed March 09, 2026, https://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/entries/crowdus-john-william.
Published by the Texas State Historical Association.
TID:
FCRJW
- October 17, 2024
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