Francis W. Moore Jr. became the second mayor of Houston, Texas, in 1838. He was elected twice more and served as mayor of the city in three consecutive decades, the 1830s, 1840s, and 1850s. He was the co-publisher of the Telegraph and Texas Register, a newspaper in Houston.

Gail Borden Jr. was a native New Yorker who settled in Texas in 1829, where he worked as a land surveyor, newspaper publisher, and inventor. He created a process in 1853 to make sweetened condensed milk. Earlier, Borden helped plan the cities of Houston and Galveston in 1836.