This Week in Texas Methodist History July 17 Newly Remodeled and Renamed Cody Memorial Library Opens at Southwestern University, July 1942 In 1879 a twenty-five year old recent graduate of Emory University arrived in Georgetown to teach mathematics. No one could have predicted at the time that the young man, Claude C. Cody, would have such a tremendous impact on Methodism’s “Central University” in Texas. Cody taught for 37 years, but in addition to teaching mathematics and astromy, he also served as Dean, Librarian, Treasurer, Secretsary of the Faculty, President of the Faculty, and twice acted as interim president of the University. He also became a historian. In that role he wrote a biography of F. A. Mood and was co-editor of the Texas Methodist Historical Quarterly (1909-1911). When President Hyer tried to remove Southwestern to the Metroplex, Cody was the main force on the side of those trying to keep the University in Georgetown. Evenually Hyer saw he could not remove Southwestern to Dallas, and moved there to found SMU instead. When he died in 1923, his admirers began a fund raising campaign to expand the library in his honor. It took decades, but in July 1942 the expanded, remodeled library opened under the new name, Cody Memorial Library. And therein lies a tale. . . ‘’/Claude Cody, Junior, (1885-1959) became physician in Houston with an ENT speciality. With an M. D. from Johns Hopkins and graduate study in Vienna, he was one of the shining stars of the Houston medical scene and acted as department chair at Baylor College of Medicine in addition to his private practice. His patients included my grandparents. He also served as President of the Texas Medical Association. He was also Chair of the Board of Southwestern University and was instrumental in saving the University from its crushing debt load in the Depression by connecting SU with Houston’s oil millionaire philanthopists and his in-laws, the Brown and Root Construction. (Cody married Florra Root in 1917) It waS difficult to raise money for library expansion since the fate of the University was so precarious but with help from U. S. Representative Lyndon Johnson who got the libraryt designated as a repository for Federal Documents, the remodeling was finally accomplished. The new, expanded library was opened in July 1942 as Cody Memorial Library—That was the library where I studied and had a campus job in the 1960s. The library has since been remodeled twice and renamed, but the “Cody Expansion” is still there and houses the Special Collections Department.