Arthur R. Garrett is county attorney of Grier County and has been a regular practitioner here in the courts since 1888. His career has been a varied one, and he has risen mainly by his own efforts to his present position. Born in Campbell County. Georgia, on May 27, 1859, he is a son of Lemuel L. Garrett, of Irish ancestry, the family having originally come from Ireland to North Carolina, and a branch of it drifting into Georgia. Lemuel Garrett was born in Campbell County, Georgia, in 1829, and he died in Savannah in 1854. He was a farmer up till the outbreak of the Civil war, when he was one of the first company that was formed in Georgia for service in the Southern army. In 1864, while in the service, he contracted typhoid and died in Savannah, as previously noted. He was a member of the Baptist Church and of the Masonic fraternity. In young manhood he married Martha Cash, born in Campbell County in 1829, and she died there in 1900. They were the parents of six children. C. C., the eldest died in Douglas County, Georgia, when he was a practicing physician and surgeon. Menesia C. married E. C. Lewis, farmer, and they live in Comanche County, Oklahoma. M. L. lives in Tishomingo, Oklahoma, and is a practicing attorney. He is also United States Indian Commissioner. S. B. resides in Altus, Oklahoma, where he is engaged in the practice of law. Arthur R. of this review was the fifth born. A. S. lives in Springtown, Texas, and is a successful physician and surgeon.

Arthur R. Garrett was reared on his father’s home farm in Campbell County, Georgia, to the age of eighteen, and in 1877 he went to Coryell County, Texas, where he worked on a farm for eight months. He went from there to Wise County, Texas, farmed for about six months, and then returned to the family home in Georgia, where he spent a year. He then went back to Texas, settling in Smith County, and then moved to Palo Pinto County, Texas, where he taught school for six years. In 1887 Mr. Garrett came to Grier County, then a part of Texas, and there opened the first public school ever held in what is now the State of Oklahoma, conducting a small school in a dug-out with about twenty-five pupils. It was while thus engaged that he undertook the study of law, and in 1888 was admitted to the bar before Judge Frank Willis. In the same year he began practice in Mangum, and has carried on a general practice here ever since.

In 1912 Mr. Garrett was elected to the office of county attorney on the democratic ticket, and in 1914 was reelected to another term of two years. He has his offices in the courthouse. He is a member of the County and State Bar Associations, and has been active in county and state conventions of the democratic party, whose man he has always been.

Mr. Garrett is a member of the Methodist Church, and he is fraternally associated with the Elks and the Masons. In the latter he is a member of Mangum Lodge No. 61, Ancient Free and Accepted Masons, of which he served as master for five years, and of Mangum Chapter No. 35, Royal Arch Masons.

In 1878 Mr. Garrett was married in Wise County, Texas, to Miss Kate Argo, a native of Campbell County, Georgia. She died on July 4, 1898, in Mangum, leaving six children. They are Hattie, who married S. L. Lanier, and lives on a farm north of Granite, Oklahoma; Chester, a farmer in Missouri; Coke, living on his father’s 500acre ranch near Granite; Clytie, who married P. W. Lee, and lives on a farm in the vicinity of Granite; Ross and Paul, both living on their father’s ranch.

Mr. Garrett married on December 7, 1899, Miss Jessie H. Hart, daughter of James S. Hart, a farmer of Mangum. Three children have been born to this union. Rada is a sophomore in the Mangum High School, and Agnes and Foster attend the grade schools of the city.