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Chapter 12: Deputy Constable Mordecai Hurdleston (October 9, 1927)
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318 12 Deputy Constable Mordecai Hurdleston1 (OCTOBER 9, 1927) “I’m done for.” OCCASIONALLY A MAN COMES ALONG who is head and shoulders above his peers figuratively speaking. Mordecai Hurdleston was such a man. During a career that lasted only sixteen years, he dragged the Fort Worth Police Department kicking and screaming into the twentieth century. He was an innovator and reformer who accomplished most of his reforms during a brief tenure as Police and Fire Commissioner (1915–1917). He was the fifth man to occupy that office after the changeover to the commission form of government in 1907. Unlike most men who occupied the office before and after, Hurdleston was proactive in addressing new forms of criminal activity and adopting the latest in technology and methodology. He was the most progressive official to head up the Police Department in the first quarter of the twentieth century, perhaps ever, even though he Mordecai Hurdleston as Police and Fire Commissioner (1915–17) sitting in the “throne chair.” The commissioner’s office was a civilian office so its occupant did not typically wear a uniform except on formal occasions like sitting for this 1915 FWPD montage .The badge is custom-made, not standard FWPD issue. (Montage courtesy Fort Worth Public Library, Central Library, Genealogy, History and Archives Unit; photo work by Kevin S. Foster) Deputy Constable Mordecai Hurdleston (October 9, 1927) 319 lasted less than two years. The man whom friends called “Mord” or “Maud” was not highly educated, but he was a breath of fresh air at the head of the FWPD and accomplished some remarkable things before city hall politics brought him down. Mordecai W. Hurdleston was born in North Carolina on April 22, 1869, at a time when the state was still under Reconstruction rule. His parents were S. B. and Annie Card Hurdleston, and his father earned a living as a laborer. “Mord,” as he was called growing up, was the oldest of four children. In 1880, the family was living in Harrison County, Texas, and he was still at home. During the next twenty years, he moved out, married Leona Grimes in 1899, and began working in the railroad business, doing a little bit of everything from laborer to conductor to, ultimately, yardmaster . His two brothers, Charles and Oliver, were also successful, the former as a “road building contractor” and the latter as a conductor for the Fort Worth and Denver Railway. Mord was too restless to stick to one thing for very long. There was certainly no indication during the first four decades of his life that he had a career in politics or law enforcement ahead of him. He worked at a number of short-lived jobs, among them selling newspapers, professional baseball player and manager, town marshal (twice), and “cigar stand proprietor.” From the beginning, he had an entrepreneurial bent coupled with an adventurous spirit; the combination made him fearless of failure. He and Leona, who was ten years his junior, had two children, born in 1900 and 1903.2 He first came to Fort Worth about 1907 and opened a restaurant on lower Main where he could take advantage of all the traffic through the Texas and Pacific station. This early entrepreneurial stab did not last long; four years later he joined the FWPD, leapfrogging older, veteran cops as one of new Chief J. W. Renfro’s appointments in April 1911. He was in the right place at the right time to benefit from the turnover in the Department, starting out as assistant chief of police. He may have started out near the top, but Hurdleston was still a lukewarm lawman. He always had [54.224.100.102] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 11:15 GMT) 320 Written in Blood bigger ambitions, most of which involved making lots of money. After only a few months on the force, he resigned to chase after one of those get-rich-quick dreams. The dream took him to Alaska, as close to the end of the world as a man could get and still be in the United States, where he “engaged in mining operations.” What enticed him, besides the prospect of striking it rich, was the prospect of being the business manager of a gold mining company. His interest in gold mining did not stop with the Alaskan venture; he also purchased an interest in another mine in Washington state. None of these ventures panned out, however, and he was back in Fort Worth in...