David J. Woodward: Pioneer Businessman and Land Developer in Texas (1864–1925)

David J. “D. J.” Woodward, businessman, land developer, and rancher, was born on May 23, 1864, in Benela, Mississippi, to John Samuel Woodward and Nancy Addie (Rice) Woodward. The Woodward family moved to Anderson County, Texas, when D. J. Woodward was three years of age. The 1870 census recorded the family in Polk County, where Woodward’s father worked as a school teacher. D. J. Woodward was educated in San Marcos and San Antonio. As a young man, he was known to have trailed cattle and was later an ardent member of the Old Texas Trail Drivers Association.

Woodward married May Bock, daughter of Charles and Annie Young Bock of Belton, Texas, on July 17, 1889 in San Marcos, Texas. The Woodwards had three children: Raymond, Hazel, and David Jr. By the early 1890s Woodward lived in San Antonio and was listed in city directories as working in a “horse and carriage repository, livery and boarding stable” on South Flores Street. The 1900 census recorded him as a dealer in carriages in San Antonio.

D. J. Woodward was founder and president of the Woodward Carriage Company, one of the first automotive dealers to introduce motor-driven vehicles on a large scale to Southwest Texas. As the business expanded, it became Woodward Carriage Company and Body Works and finally Winerich Motor Company. The early Woodward Carriage Company carried every variety of wagons, carts, and buggies and advertised the enterprise as “Texas’ Foremost Vehicle Dealers” specializing in those for “country use, with wide tires for sandy countries.” The company transitioned into automobiles and sold Willys–Overland and Buick models. D. J. Woodward partnered with his son D. J. Jr., J. A. Nichols, Samuel Sparks (former state treasurer), and Ralph Rogers Ogden and established the Woodward Manufacturing Company and Woodward Body Works in Austin in 1920. The company operated as a truck body factory, located on the Post Road about two miles south of the Austin city limits.

Woodward served in many corporate roles, including president of Jerdan Marble Mountain Company at Alpine, president of the Woodward Vichy Water Company, vice president of Three Rivers Glass Company, director of Federal Land Bank of Houston, and member of the draft board in Bexar County during World War I.

He was the developer and founder of the town of Woodward in LaSalle County. This early land development project was named for him and was based on the potential of agricultural production. Early in 1907 Woodward brought in two train cars of Japanese laborers to convert the native brushland into productive fields; he planned to have 5,000 acres in cultivation later that year and develop a new community to a population of 10,000. Woodward’s land sales and investments included the livestock and ranching business. He owned the famed Maroma Ranch in Mexico. One of the civic improvements that Woodward advocated was the widening of Commerce Street in San Antonio.

Woodward was active in many fraternal organizations. He was a thirty-second-degree Scottish Rite Mason and a member of Alamo Lodge No. 44, a Knights Templar, and a member of the Alzafar Shrine. David J. Woodward died of diabetes and complications on November 16, 1925, at age sixty-one in San Antonio, Texas, and was buried at Mission Burial Park South in San Antonio.