Future port developer weds future state legislator

On this day in 1905, developer Hugh Benton Moore wed Helen Edmunds in Kansas City. She was working as a nurse at the hospital where he was a patient. One month after their wedding, the couple moved to Texas City, Texas, of which Hugh Moore was the pioneer developer. He also served as general manager of the Texas City Terminal Railroad and Mainland Company. As a nurse, Helen Moore provided the only medical service in Texas City until the first doctor arrived in 1907. She also became an activist for woman suffrage, a crusade that eventually led to her 1923 election as president of the League of Women Voters of Texas. She was also elected twice to the state legislature, where she established a reputation for humanitarianism. Hugh Moore, meanwhile, devoted himself to establishing Texas City as a major industrial port. He retired in May 1944, after all investment bonds for the townsite were redeemed, and died of pneumonia in Santa Fe, New Mexico, thirty-nine years to the day after his marriage. After the death of her husband, Mrs. Moore gave a grant to the Salvation Army of Texas City for the construction of a building to care for the poor. She died in 1968.