Moody

Duane's take

Here's how the official marker tells it, and here's how I'm gonna tell it to you. Before there was a Moody, there was a Perry. Sat about two miles north of where Moody stands today, a pre-Civil War settlement that folks had been calling home for years.

And Perry might have gone on just fine, might have grown into something considerable, except for what happened in 1881. The Gulf, Colorado and Santa Fe Railroad came through the area, and the railroad did not come through Perry. It bypassed the town entirely.

Now if you know anything about Texas in that era, you know what a railroad bypassing your town meant. It meant the future was going somewhere else. And the future, in this case, went just down the road, onto the land of an early settler named William Naler, where a brand new town was platted.

The man supervising the laying of track in the area was Colonel W. L. Moody of Galveston.

And when it came time to give the new town a name, he named it in honor of his family. So right there on Naler's land, beside those fresh-laid rails, Moody was born. The town was incorporated in 1901, and from there it kept on building, fraternal organizations, schools, churches, commercial outfits, medical institutions, the whole fabric of a community that intended to stick around.

Perry is a memory. Moody is still on the map. Sometimes the railroad decides everything.

What the marker says

The town of Moody can trace its history ot the pre-civil war settlement of Perry (2 mi. N). In 1881, the Gulf, Colorado & Santa Fe Railroad bypassed Perry, and a new town was platted on the land of early settler William Naler. Col. W.L. Moody of Galveston who supervised the laying of track in the area, named the town in honor of his family. Incorporated in 1901, the Moody community has thrived over the years and is the home of various fraternal, educational, commercial, religious, and medical institutions and organizations.