C. W. Raines

Cadwell Walton Raines, a native of Upson County, Georgia, contributed to Texas history as a Methodist preacher, schoolteacher, attorney, newspaper publisher, county official, historian, and state librarian. Born in 1839, he came to Texas in 1853 with his parents, Thomas and Aletha McClendon Raines, and lived in Rockwall and Paris before enlisting in the Confederate army in 1861 under Richard Montgomery Gano. After the war, he married Mary Bowden in 1871 and, following a period as a preacher in Arkansas, began practicing law in Canton, where he became acquainted with future governor James Stephen Hogg and entered the newspaper business. In 1880 Hogg sent him to Mineola to begin publishing The Mineola Hawkeye. By 1884 the Raines family lived in Quitman, where he taught at Concord Academy. He was elected Wood County Judge in 1886 and served two terms. When Jim Hogg took office as Texas' first native governor in 1891, he appointed Raines state librarian. Serving from 1891 to 1895 and again from 1899 until his death in 1906, Raines guided the state library through substantial growth and began its Texana collection. He also wrote numerous reference books and journal articles and co-founded the Texas State Historical Association.

Mineola, Texas · United States