Thomas Leonard Bradford (February 13, 1869 – August 22, 1932) was Mayor of

Dallas Dallas () is the List of municipalities in Texas, third largest city in Texas and the largest city in the Dallas–Fort Worth metroplex, the List of metropolitan statistical areas, fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States at 7.5 ...

Texas Texas (, ; Spanish: ''Texas'', ''Tejas'') is a state in the South Central region of the United States. At 268,596 square miles (695,662 km2), and with more than 29.1 million residents in 2020, it is the second-largest U.S. state by ...

from 1931 until his death by heart attack in 1932. Tom Bradford was born in

Port Hudson, Louisiana Port Hudson is an unincorporated community in East Baton Rouge Parish, Louisiana, United States. Located about northwest of Baton Rouge, it is known primarily as the location of an American Civil War battle, the siege of Port Hudson, in 1863. G ...

to the Rev. Harrison Bradford and Elizabeth Shelmire Bradford. Bradford graduated from Centenary College of Louisiana before moving to Dallas in 1887. Bradford opened a grocery store in the

Oak Cliff Oak Cliff is a neighborhood of Dallas, Texas, that was formerly a separate town in Dallas County; Dallas annexed Oak Cliff in 1901. It has since retained a distinct neighborhood identity as one of Dallas' older established neighborhoods. Oak C ...

neighborhood in 1888. By 1912 Bradford had an ownership interest in six grocery stores, and that year he acquired an interest in Southwestern Life Insurance Company. In 1929, he donated $100,000 to build the Bradford Memorial Hospital for Babies, the present Children's Medical Center of Dallas. As the first Dallas mayor elected under the council-manager system of municipal government adopted on October 10, 1930, Bradford was first elected to the eight-member council by Dallas voters, and then elected mayor by his fellow councilmen.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradford, Tom 1869 births 1932 deaths Mayors of Dallas Dallas City Council members People from Oak Cliff, Texas