Minnie Fisher Cunningham, a native of Walker County, earned a pharmacy degree at the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston in 1901, worked in a Huntsville drugstore, and married attorney B.J. Cunningham in 1902. After moving to Galveston in 1907, she later lived in Austin and Washington, D.C. A leader in woman suffrage organizations, she served as president of the Texas Equal Suffrage Association and helped found the National League of Women's Voters. In 1928 she became the first Texas woman to run for the U.S. Senate, though her campaign was unsuccessful, and that same year her husband died. Her career then turned toward public relations work for government agencies, including the Texas Agricultural Extension Service and the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Active in the National Democratic Party, she counted President Franklin D. Roosevelt among the many friends who fondly called her by her nickname, "Minnie Fish." In 1944 she ran for governor of Texas against Coke Stevenson, placing second among nine candidates in the primary. She built a home near this site in 1946 and continued working in Democratic Party politics until her death at age 82.