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WISE COUNTY HISTORICAL SITES

Charles Vernon Terrell

Main Street, Decatur, Texas 76234
East side of courthouse lawn

A leading public man in Texas, 1896-1939. Born in Wise County to early (1854) settlers. After two years at Texas A & M, read law and began practice in 1886. Served 1888-92 as Decatur City attorney; 1892-96 as county attorney; 1896-1901 and 1909-13 from Denton-Montague-Wise counties, in Texas Senate. There he sponsored act creating North Texas State University. He was state treasurer of Texas from 1921 to 1924. Appointed in 1924 to the Texas Railroad Commission (chairman 2 terms), he served during landmark years when Texas was catapulted into role of a major world energy supplier. Through regulation of oil and gas shipping, the Railroad Commission became the agency for making production rules. When East Texas in the 1930s began to produce oil in volumes such as the world had never known, and the state invoked martial law to quell strife there, Commissioner Terrell and associates pioneered in conservation without the sacrifice of industrial leadership. After his retirement in 1939, his native county had an oil discovery at Park Springs, in 1942. The Chico field came in with larger yields in 1947. C. V and Etta (May) Terrell were parents of Tully Vernon, John Preston, and Margaret (Mrs. F. T. Ward).

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