Melvin Moore Jr. is thought to have moved from Fields Store to Hempstead at or about the same time as his parents, Melvin and Eliza Moore. He became a carpenter, but later engaged in farming, ranching and cattle trading. He was drafted into the Army during World War I and served as an infantry sergeant in the fierce fighting in France. After the armistice in 1918, he stayed in the Army for several months in the occupation of the Rhineland in Germany. He got back to Hempstead in the summer of 1919. Because it was too late to plant crops and not wanting to be idle, he began picking cotton and followed the cotton harvest to west Texas. There he met and married his wife Eula and brought her home to Hempstead. Melvin Jr. resumed farming and ranching, and he and Eula had a son, Howell.
In 1924, Melvin Jr. was persuaded by friends and concerned citizens to run for sheriff of Waller County as an anti Ku Klux Klan candidate. He defeated the incumbent sheriff and took office in 1925. Because the county did not fund the position of jailer, Melvin Jr. and his family moved into the jailer’s living quarters in the old jail which was located on the courthouse grounds northeast of the old courthouse.
As sheriff, Melvin Jr. was much admired and respected for treating all fairly, without regard to wealth, political connections or race. On one occasion, he was called to the southern part of the county where a young man, probably drinking, was creating a disturbance by repeatedly firing a weapon. Upon his arrival, Sheriff Moore was advised by a local supporter not to arrest the young man, as he was the son of an important man in the area. Sheriff Moore is said to have replied, “I don’t care whose son he is; he’s breaking the law and he’s going to jail.” Melvin Jr. ran unopposed and was elected for a second term as sheriff. Soon after the commencement of his second term in 1927, Melvin Jr. died at the age of 39 in an automobile accident while he and a friend were returning to Hempstead from Houston. Melvin Jr. is buried in the Hempstead Cemetery. Soon after his death, his widow with their young son returned to her family in West Texas.