Daniel T. McCarty - Political Career

Political Career

He began his political career when in 1937, he was elected to the Florida House of Representatives where he served until 1941. During the 1941 session, he served as speaker of the house. In 1948 he was the runner up for the Democratic nomination for governor. Four years later in 1952, he ran for governor again, and this time was successful in winning the office. During his tenure, he reformed purchasing and hiring practices by the state government, boosted teachers' salaries and created scholarships for teacher training, opposed oil exploration in the Everglades, and instituted aid programs for the disabled. On February 25, 1953, shortly after assuming the governorship, he suffered a debilitating heart attack and died on September 28, 1953 in Tallahassee. After a large funeral at his lifelong parish church, the old Carpenter Gothic St. Andrew's Episcopal Church across the street from his boyhood home in Fort Pierce, he was buried in the Palms Cemetery three miles south on Indian River Drive in Ankona. It is said that the beginning of the bumper-to-bumper funeral procession reached the small cemetery before the last cars had left the church area. Dan McCarty Middle School, in St. Lucie County, was named in his honor.