Jean Baptiste Adoue

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Jean Baptiste Adoue, Jr. (November 4, 1884 – November 17, 1956) was a Dallas businessman and politician who served as mayor of Dallas, Texas from 1951 to 1953.

He was born in Dallas County and was one of four children of Jean Baptiste Adoue, Sr. and Mittie Neosha Simpson Adoue. He earned a law degree from the University of Texas at Austin in 1906 and returned to Dallas to practice law. He then worked with his father at the National Bank of Commerce (the bank was once known as Flippen, Adoue, and Lobit before changing when his father became president in 1892). He married Hester Ann Allen on October 12, 1909, and they had two children.

After his father’s death by suicide on June 24, 1924, Adoue became president of the National Bank of Commerce. After his first wife died, he married Mary J. Wilson on May 12, 1937; they had no children.

From 1939 to 1947, Adoue was president of the Dallas Chamber of Commerce, strengthening the organization financially and earning the Linz Award for community service in 1943. He served on the Dallas city council starting in 1942 and was re-elected in 1943 and 1945.

In 1949, he ran for mayor but lost to Wallace H. Savage, though he received the most votes among the council candidates. In 1951, he was elected mayor. His term saw clashes with some unions, but he pushed a public-works program that expanded Love Field. He did not seek a second term because his health was declining. After leaving office, he returned to banking and worked there until his death on November 17, 1956. He is buried at Crown Hill Memorial Mausoleum in Dallas.

Adoue was once listed among Texas’s top ten tennis players and served on the board of the U.S. Lawn Tennis Association for 30 years. He was also a member of the American Arbitration Association, American Bar Association, Newcomen Society, and Phi Delta Theta.