Episode 84 – Notorious Governors of Texas, Up First Edmund J. Davis

Episode 84 – Notorious Governors of Texas, Up First Edmund J. Davis

From The Hidden History of Texas by Hank Wilson

February 15, 2026 · 11 min

About this episode

This episode explores the life and political career of Edmund J. Davis, a notorious governor of Texas during the Reconstruction era.

This is Episode 84 - Notorious Governors of Texas Edmund J. Davis and the first of our series of Notorious Governors of Texas. With all the politics in the news today, I’ve naturally been thinking about politics and politicians. One group that has always intrigued me are governors. Not presidents, or senators, or members of the house, but governors. They’re the ones who really give a state its identity, well at least in a way, because they’re most often the ‘face’ of the state. Here in Texas, our current governor seems to love making pronouncements about how his administration is going to fight this or that evil that might be encroaching on Texan’s freedoms. More often than not, it’s usually just a bunch of fluff that his advisors know will make his hard-core supporters emotional and get him on the evening news. After all he’s running for re-election and needs to make sure people don’t forget about him. Naturally this got me to thinking about Texas governors in the past, so I started researching what I thought of the most notorious governors in the history of the state. These governors often gained notoriety due to the turbulent, defining political eras in which they served, such…

People in this episode

Host: Hank Wilson

Topics covered

  • Texas governors
  • politics
  • Reconstruction
  • historical figures
  • state identity

Keywords

  • Edmund J. Davis
  • Texas governors
  • Reconstruction
  • politics
  • history

Mentioned in this episode

Places: Texas

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