Eugene Herbert Clay (October 3, 1881 – June 22, 1923) was the mayor of Marietta, Georgia, and one of the ringleaders in the lynching of Leo Frank.^[2][3]

He was born in Marietta, Georgia to Senator Alexander S. Clay and Frances (White) Clay.^[1][4] Clay attended the University of Georgia and the Mercer University, graduating in from the latter with an LL.B.^[1][4] He was a member of the Chi Phi fraternity.^[1][4] He served as the mayor of Marietta, Georgia from 1911 to 1912.^[1] He was twice elected Solicitor General of the Blue Ridge Circuit and served on the State Democratic Committee.^[1]

In 1915, he helped plan the lynching of Leo Frank, a Jewish-American factory superintendent whose murder conviction and extrajudicial hanging in 1915 by a lynch mob drew attention to questions of antisemitism in the United States.^[2]

He married Virginia Hudson of Pocahontas, Virginia on December 27, 1919.^[1] He also had one son, Eugene Herbert Clay, Jr., by a prior marriage.^[1] In the fall of 1920, he was elected to the Georgia Senate.^[1] He was president of the Georgia Senate as of 1922.^[1] On June 22, 1923, Clay died suddenly of a heart attack in the Wilmot Hotel at Atlanta, Georgia.^[5]

His youngest brother was General Lucius D. Clay a senior officer of the United States Army who was later known for his administration of occupied Germany after World War II.